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Copyright. by Little. Browns fr C? 


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“In France everybody is a trifle Tarasconese ’* 


Gin 

P UBUSHtr, 

HOV 3 , 90 


INTRODUCTION, 


To not a few persons Alphonse Daudet’s claims 
to affectionate gratitude seem to rest chiefly upon 
his authorship of the Tartarin series, — at least 
upon the first two members of that trilogy of 
humourous masterpieces, the inimitable Tartarin de 
Tarascon and the equally inimitable Tartarin sur 
les Alpes. Some critics, indeed, apparently through 
temperamental peculiarities, lay most stress upon 
the excellent Parisian stories, Le Nabab , SapJio , 
and the rest; others care most for the delicate 
short stories and sketches of the Provencal poet, 
which Daudet never ceased to be, such as those 
collected in the charming Lettres de mon Moulin ; 
while Daudet himself seems to have felt a partiality 
for that interesting mixture of pathetic romance, 
satire, and truth which he denominated Jack . 
But it was as the discoverer of the now famous little 
town of Tarascon, and the introducer of its chief 
citizen Tartarin to a wider public, that Daudet 
impressed the entire world of letters, general 
readers and critics as well, with the idea that he 
was not only a great humourist, but a decidedly 
original one. Now the fame of a humourist, though 


viii 


Introduction . 


precarious, is wonderfully strong and popular if it 
manages to survive a generation or two, and it is 
probably a true instinct on the part of many of 
Daudet’s friends to press his claims as the creator 
of Tartarin. As a Parisian veritist, to adopt Pro- 
fessor Brander Matthews’s useful phrase, Daudet 
must come into somewhat disastrous competition 
with Balzac ; as a Provencal poet he runs the risk 
of being labelled “ slight and fragile though charm- 
ing; ” but as Provencal poet and original humourist 
combined he seems to stand an excellent chance 
of being regarded by future generations as uniquely 
delightful. If this be true, Daudet’s friends — and 
who is not his friend? — will do well, whenever 
they have occasion to sound his praises, to insist 
upon the unapproachable merits of the Tartarin 
books. 

There is indeed another of his stories that should 
not be passed over in this connection. This is 
that wonderful though not quite perfect comedy, 
Numa Roumestan, in which veritist, poet, and 
humourist are found combined in admirable pro- 
portions. In the two Tartarins the delightful 
follies and foibles of his native Provence are pre- 
sented by Daudet with an exaggeration which, 
although it does not actually smack of the extrava- 
ganza or the farce, is never far removed from the 
suggestion of them. In Numa , on the other hand, 
the same follies and foibles are presented in a way 
that not only suggests but confirms the presence 
of the spirit of true comedy. There are parts of 


Introduction . 


IX 


this story that Moliere himself would not disdain, 
and it should always be held in high honour by the 
lovers of Tartarin, if only for the fact that in it 
his irrepressible friend Bompard, who had been 
barely mentioned in Tartarin de Tarascon t was 
developed for future use in Tartarin sur les Alpes 
and in Port-Tarascon. 

But granted that Daudet is a great humourist 
who will hold his own with future readers, the fact 
remains that he is a French humourist, and the 
query at once arises whether he will be able to 
stand that cosmopolitan test which we demand of 
truly great authors. In other words will his humour 
bear permanent transplanting into other tongues? 
Any attempt to answer this question will expose 
the critic who makes it to a chance of committing 
a blunder of the kind that future critics delight to 
hold up to ridicule. A work of humour has diffi- 
culties enough to encounter in its author’s native 
land ; these difficulties are enhanced tenfold when 
the translator or interpreter has intervened. Even 
when two nations speak a common language, it 
rarely happens that they can appreciate each 
other’s efforts to be humourous or funny. Many 
an American fails to smile at the best things of 
Charles Lamb, and we may rest assured that Mark 
Twain can tell queer stories of his British experi- 
ences whenever he has a mind to. Then there is 
the case of Dickens, with whom Daudet is forever 
being compared. Dickens unquestionably con- 
quered both the British and the American public, 


X 


Introduction . 


but there has been quite a revolt against him of 
late, and it has never been easy to say with cer- 
tainty how many of his admirers really cared for 
his far from delicate humour. It is, indeed, not 
unlikely that more people enjoyed a cry over his 
pathetic and sentimental pages than relished a 
hearty laugh over his humourous characters and 
situations. Even Pickwick has remained a sealed 
book to many, though few have had the courage 
of a gentleman known to the present writer, who 
read before a literary club passages from that 
immortal book to prove the thesis that there is no 
fun in Dickens. He thinks to this day that the 
club members were laughing with him, and not at 
him. But would not the tables have been turned 
if he had been a Frenchman addressing his literary 
confreres? Might he not have been cheered to the 
echo, while phrases like “ Grosse bete ! ” “ Conspuez 
Dickens ! ” made themselves heard amid the ap- 
plause? It is surely not unlikely, nor can one 
help feeling that, although the Tartarin books have 
been widely read in America, it would be a little 
unsafe to attempt to read passages from them to 
any save a select audience, even in this cosmo- 
politan land. 

But the true lover is nothing if not bold, and 
Daudet’s admirers may as well have the courage 
of their convictions and proclaim that if the Tar- 
tarin books do not give pleasure and happiness 
the world over, they ought to. Readers who 
insist upon horse-laughs and farces may indeed be 


Introduction . 


xi 


warned away from them, as well as those who think 
that the secret of humour is to be found in queer 
spelling ; but readers glad of any opportunity for 
a genial laugh or a rippling smile may be coun- 
selled to make the acquaintance of Daudet’s 
masterpieces as soon as they conveniently can. 

The first of these masterpieces, Tartarin de Tar - 
ascon, seems to have been begun about 1868. It 
was finally published in 1872, and has ever since 
been a most popular book. Even if we did not 
have these dates, the Provencal setting and the 
fact that the apostrophe of the old diligence to 
Tartarin must have been written by the author of 
La Chevre de M. Seguin would have proved that 
these first adventures of the illustrious citizen of 
Tarascon developed in Daudet’s mind about the 
time that he wrote and published those “ Letters 
from my Mill” (1869), in which the story of the 
sad fate of M. Seguin’s she-goat found a place; 
while the comparative failure to strike the comic 
vein — which is quite apparent on the other hand 
in Tartarin sur les Alpes — would, seemingly, have 
proved equally well that the book stood at a con- 
siderable remove from Numa Roumestan (1881). 
But the date of a book is not so important as its 
matter and manner — and what of these? 

The Arthurian romances used to be called 
“ Matter of Britain ; ” just so the Tartarin books 
might be called “ Matter of Tarascon,” or better 
still “ Matter of Provence.” But his beloved Midi 
is described in many of Daudet’s stories, and one 


Introduction . 


xii 

could have got out of them a fairly complete 
picture of the region and its people, — of those 
irrepressible, exaggerating, mercurial inhabitants 
of that South of France “ ou les paroles volent 
plus vite qu’ailleurs a cause de la l£geret£ de 
l’air,” where words fly more quickly than elsewhere 
because the air is so light and buoyant, — had 
Tartarin and his Tarascon never taken definite 
shape in Daudet’ s imagination. Primarily speak- 
ing, therefore, the matter of these books is their 
unique hero. Who, then, is Tartarin and whence 
does he proceed? 

Daudet has answered these questions for us 
better than we should have done for ourselves. 
He tells us that the hero of his fertile imagination 
is a compound of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. 
Cervantes has had many sins to answer for in the 
story-tellers whom he has inspired to send more 
or less queer heroes and their queerer attendants 
through the world hunting for adventures, but it 
should be as impossible to be sorry that Daudet 
fell under his influence as it is to be sorry that 
Fielding fell. The conception of a united Quixote- 
Sancho in the person of Tarascon’s famous hunter 
and Alpinist is almost as original in its way as 
that of the Jekyl-Hyde of the English romancer, 
and is as much more beneficial to the world as a 
smile is worth more than a shudder. And who of 
us fails to smile at Tartarin and yet to love him? 
For, as Professor Matthews has acutely observed, 
“ there is a boaster and a liar in most of us, lying 


Introduction . 


xiii 

in wait for a chance to rush out and put us to 
shame.” We have all of us read our romances of 
love or war, and aspired to imitate our heroes and 
then quietly settled back into our commonplace 
grooves. It may not have been romances of 
chivalry as with Don Quixote, or those of Gustave 
Aimard and Cooper as with our friend Tartarin, 
but we have all been stirred by the far-off and the 
strange, and if we have not persuaded ourselves 
that we have actually fought with Tartars at 
Shanghai when we were really watering our plants 
at Tarascon, we have at least known and liked 
people who had persuaded themselves of equal 
impossibilities. Hence we have taken Tartarin to 
our hearts, and hence Daudet has added a char- 
acter to European fiction and has rivalled the 
creators of Parson Adams and Dr. Primrose in 
his power to develop a personage who should 
win our laughter and our love at one and the 
same instant. It would perhaps be presumptuous 
to say that Tartarin is the French Falstaff, yet he 
surely has many qualities in common with that 
inimitable creation. 

With regard now to Daudet’s manner of telling 
his story, nothing but praise seems possible. With 
absolute lightness of touch he sets Tarascon before 
us in such a way that we seem to know the little 
town and its self-centred inhabitants as well as we 
know our native place and the men with whom we 
grew up. And when we have once learned to 
know the town’s hero, he is our hero, and we 


xvi 


Introduction . 


out a good case for themselves. It is true that 
lion hunting in the desert is a less common pas- 
time than alpine climbing, but just for this reason 
perhaps, the pages devoted to Tartarin’s actual 
experiences as a Nimrod seem to resemble a 
burlesque a little more than do the correspond- 
ing pages descriptive of the most sans-sonciant 
ascent of the Jungfrau ever made. As for the 
disappearance of the intrepid Alpinist amid the 
snows of Mont Blanc and his sudden apparition 
in the midst of the seance of the Alpine Club of 
Tarascon, what more superb denouement could a 
masterpiece of humour have? 

Finally, when we consider the characters of the 
two books we may find reason to believe, as in- 
deed we might have inferred from cl priori con- 
siderations, that the Daudet of 1885 is a more 
consummate artist than the Daudet of 1872. 
Whether Tartarin himself is more inimitable as 
an Alpinist than as a mighty hunter who dis- 
dained panthers and such ignoble beasts, and 
would be satisfied with nothing less than a heca- 
tomb of lions, may perhaps be doubted, although 
it would seem that his character is more delicately 
shaded. But almost every other personage of 
the second book shows the effects of Daudet’s 
thirteen years experience in character-drawing. 
Certainly Pascalon, and Bravida, and Bezuquet, 
those illustrious Tarasconese, are better sketched, 
and for the Prince of Montenegro we have Bom- 
pard in exchange, — Bompard, who yields only to 


Introduction . 


xvi 1 


Tartarin himself as the most deliciously and lov- 
ably absurd of visionaries. There was no need of 
giving to Bompard so thin a joke as that assigned 
to the Prince, who excited Tartarin’s curiosity 
greatly by informing him that he had spent 
three years at Tarascon, a statement which was 
cleared up for the bewildered great man of a small 
place only when he learned that his Royal High- 
ness had seen Tarascon merely from the windows 
of his prison-cell. 

But why should we continue the ungrateful task 
of comparing Tartarin sur les A Ipes with its delight- 
ful predecessor to the detriment of the latter? Vive 
Tartarin, the Alpinist; but vive also Tartarin-Nim- 
rod. There is no need for us to initiate a contest 
similar to that waged between the partisans of rice 
and the stanch defenders of prunes in the dining- 
room of the Rigi hotel. For when we are engaged 
in our critical balancings and comparisons, who 
breaks into our midst but the illustrious Tartarin 
himself, bent on forcing us into as wild a dance as 
that in which he succeeded in involving the fac- 
tions of the Swiss caravansary? There is really 
no need of criticism when Tartarin is about. Think 
how small Professor Schwanthaler and the Academ- 
ician Astier-Rehu appear beside him. He is a hero 
favoured of the gods. He never seems to lack 
money, and he is actually a hero to his fellow- 
townsmen. The glamour of the South is upon him 
and is radiated from him upon all who are brought 
within his magic influence. If we do not: look 


XV111 


Introduction . 


upon life as genial optimists after having made 
his acquaintance, then we are indeed fit, in the 
words of the great dramatist who has ere this 
hailed Daudet as in part at least a kindred spirit, 
“ for treason, stratagems, and spoils.” 


W. P. TRENT. 


CONTENTS 


TARTARIN OF TARASCON. 

PAGK 

Introduction vii 

First Episode. At Tarascon. 

I. The garden of the baobab i 

II. Genera] coup d’oeil cast upon the worthy town of Ta- 
rascon. The Hunters of caps 4 

III. Nani Nani Nan! Continuation of the general coup 

d’ceil cast upon the good town of Tarascon ... 8 

IV. They Ml 

V. When Tartarin went to the club 16 

VI. The two Tartarins 19 

VII. Europeans at Shanghai. Higher Commerce. Tartars. 

Can it be that Tartarin of Tarascon is an impostor ? 22 

VIII. The Menagerie Mitaine. A lion of the Atlas in Tar- 
ascon. Terrible and solemn interview .... 25 

IX. Singular effects of mirage 30 

X. Previous to departure 34 

XI. “ Sword-thrusts, gentlemen, sword-thrusts . . . but no 

pin-pricks ” 36 

XII. That which was said in the little house of the baobab 39 

XIII. The departure 42 

XIV. The port of Marseilles. Embark 1 Embark 1 . . . 46 

Second Episode. Among the Teurs. 

I. The voyage. The five positions of the fez. The even- 
ing of the third day. Mercy ! 50 

II. To arms 1 To arms 1 53 

III. Invocation to Cervantes. Disembarkation. Where 
are the Teurs? No Teurs. Disillusion .... 


56 


XXII 


Contents 


ARTISTS’ WIVES 

PAGB 

Prologue 351 

I. Madame Heurtebise . . - 363 

II. The Credo of Love 372 

III. La Trasteverina 379 

IV. A Family of Singers 388 

V. A Misunderstanding — The Wife’s Version .... 396 

A Misunderstanding — The Husband’s Version . . 397 

VI. Acts of Violence 408 

VII. Bohemia en Famille 418 

VIII. Fragment of a Woman’s Letter, found on Rue Notre- 

Dame-des-Champs 425 

IX. A Great Man’s Widow 432 

X. The Liar 439 

XI. Comtesse Irma 447 

XII. The Confidences of a Coat embroidered with Green 

Palm-leaves 454 


TARTARIN OF TARASCON, 


FIRST EPISODE. 

AT TARASCON. 

I. 

The garden of the baobab . 

My first visit to Tartarin of Tarascon remains an 
unforgetable date in my life ; it is a dozen or fif- 
teen years since then, but I remember it better 
than yesterday. The intrepid Tartarin was then 
living at the entrance to the town, in the third 
house, left-hand side, on the road to Avignon ; a 
pretty little Tarasconese villa, garden before, bal- 
cony behind, very white walls, green blinds, and 
on the step of the gate a brood of little Savoyards 
playing at hop-scotch, or sleeping in the blessed 
sun, with their heads on their shoe-blacking 
boxes. 

Outside, the house looked like nothing at all. 

Never could I have thought myself before the 
home of a hero. But enter — coqum de sort! . . 

From cellar to garret the whole building had an 
heroic air, even the garden. 


2 Tartarin of Tar as con. 

Oh, the garden of Tartarin ! there are not two 
like it in all Europe. Not one tree of the region, 
not a flower of France; nothing but exotic plants, 
gum-trees, cotton-trees, bottle-gourds, cocoanuts, 
mangoes, cochineal-trees, banana-trees, palm-trees, 
a baobab, cactuses, prickly pears from Barbary, till 
one might fancy one’s self in Central Africa, ten 
thousand leagues from Tarascon. All these, be it 
understood, were not of natural size ; the cocoanut- 
trees were scarcely larger than beet-roots, and the 
baobab Qarbos gigantea , tree of Senegal, largest 
known vegetable product) lived at ease in a 
mignonette pot; but no matter for that! it was 
very pretty to the eyes of Tarascon ; and the peo- 
ple of the town, admitted on Sundays to the honour 
of contemplating the baobab, went home full of 
admiration. 

Think what emotion I must have felt that first 
day in crossing that wondrous garden ! . . But it 
was quite another thing when I was ushered into 
the study of the hero. 

This study, one of the curiosities of the town, 
was at the farther end of the garden, opening into 
it on a level with the baobab by a glass door. 

Imagine to yourself a large hall, tapestried from 
top to bottom with guns, sabres, the weapons of 
all lands, carbines, rifles, blunderbusses, Corsican 
knives, Catalan knives, revolving knives, dagger- 
knives, Malay krishes, tomahawks, Hottentot clubs, 
Mexican lassos, and I know not what all. 

Shining above them, a great ferocious sun made 
the steel of the blades and the muzzles glitter, as 


3 


The Garden of the Baobab . 

if to make your flesh creep all the more. . . It 
was rather reassuring, however, to see the good 
air of order and cleanliness that reigned through- 
out the yataghanery. All things were in place, 
ranged in line, dusted, ticketed as in a pharmacy ; 
here and there a little notice, in neat writing, said : 

Poisoned arrows ; do not touch! 

or: — 

Loaded weapoiis ; be careful! 

Without these notices I should not have dared 
to enter. 

In the middle of the study was a round table. 
On the table a flask of rum, a Turkish tobacco- 
pouch, Captain Cook’s Travels, the novels of Feni- 
more Cooper and Gustave Aimard, hunting nar- 
ratives, bear-hunts, elephant-hunts, hunts with 
falcons, etc. . . Before this table sat a man of 
forty to forty-five years of age ; short, fat, squat, 
ruddy, in his shirt-sleeves and flannel drawers, 
with a strong short beard and flaming eyes; in 
one hand he held a book, in the other he bran- 
dished an enormous pipe with a metal lid, and, 
while reading I know not what stupendous tale of 
the hunters of pelts, he made, by advancing his 
lower lip, a terrible grimace, which gave to the 
visage of a small Tarasconese proprietor the same 
air of innocent ferocity that reigned throughout 
his dwelling. 

This man was Tartarin, Tartarin of Tarascon, 
the intrepid, the great, the incomparable Tartarin 
of Tarascon. 


4 


Tar tar in of Taras con. 


II. 

General coup (Vcdl cast upon the worthy town of 
Tarascon. The Hunters of caps. 

AT the period of which I am telling you, 
Tartarin of Tarascon was not yet the Tartarin 
that he is to-day, the great Tartarin of Taras- 
con, so popular throughout the south of France. 
Nevertheless, even at that epoch, he was already 
king of Tarascon. 

Let me tell whence that royalty came to him. 

You must know, in the first place, that every 
man down there is a sportsman, from the highest 
to the lowest. Hunting is the passion of the 
Tarasconese ; and this from times mythological 
when La Tarasque played the mischief in the 
marshes of the town, and the Tarasconese of 
those days formed battues against her. Good 
reason, as you see, for their passion. 

Consequently, every Sunday morning Tarascon 
takes arms and issues from its walls, gun to shoul- 
der, game-bag on its back, with a turmoil of dogs, 
ferrets, trumpets, and horns. Superb to see. Un- 
fortunately, game is lacking; absolutely lacking. 
However stupid wild animals may be, you can well 
believe that in the end they would mistrust that 
turmoil. 


5 


The Hunters of Caps . 

For a circuit of five leagues around Tarascon 
burrows are empty, nests arc deserted. Not a 
blackbird, not a quail, not the least little rabbit, nor 
so much as a snipe. 

And yet they are very tempting, those Tarascon- 
ese hillsides, all redolent of thyme and myrtle, 
lavender and rosemary; and those fine muscat 
grapes, bursting with sugar, in serried ranks along 
the Rhone, are devilishly appetizing also. Yes ! 
but there is always a Tarasconese behind them; 
and in the kingdom of pelts and plumes the men 
of Tarascon are very ill-noted. The birds of pas- 
sage have marked a great cross against the name 
of that town in their time-tables, and when the 
wild ducks, flying south toward the Camargue in 
long triangles, perceive from afar the steeples of 
the town, the leader cries out, very loud, “ There ’s 
Tarascon ! there 's Tarascon ! ” and the flock makes 
a crook in its course. 

In short, as to game, nothing remains in the 
whole region but one old scamp of a hare, escaped 
by miraculous means from the Tarasconese Septem- 
ber massacres, who obstinately persists in living 
there. That hare is well known to Tarascon. They 
have given him a name. He is called “ Rapid.” 
His burrow is on the estate of M. Bompard (a fact 
which has, by the bye, doubled or even trebled the 
value of that property), but no one yet has been 
able to bag him. 

At the present time there are only two or three 
fanatics still rabid enough to hunt him. 

The rest mourn him, and “ Rapid ” has long 


6 Tartarin of Tar as con, 

since passed into the state of a local superstition, 
though the Tarasconese are not at all superstitious 
by nature ; in fact, they eat swallows in stews — 
when there are any. 

“ Ah, ga ! ” you will say to me, “ if game is so 
scarce in Tarascon what do those Tarasconese 
hunters do of a Sunday morning?” 

What do they do ? 

Hey! mon Dieu! they go out into the open 
country, two or three leagues from the town. There 
they gather in little groups of five or six, stretch 
themselves tranquilly out in the shade of a quarry, 
an old wall, an olive-tree, take from their game- 
bags a good bit of braised beef, raw onions, a 
sancissot , a few anchovies, and begin then and 
there an interminable repast, washed down with 
one of those delectable Rhone wines that make 
laughter and song. 

After which, being well ballasted, up they get, 
whistle to the dogs, load the guns, and begin the 
hunt. That is to say, each of these gentlemen 
takes his cap, tosses it in the air with all his 
strength, and fires at it on the wing with a 5, or a 
6, or a 2 — according to agreement. 

He who hits his cap the oftenest is hailed king 
of the hunt, and returns in the evening triumphant 
to Tarascon, amid the barking of dogs and the 
blare of trumpets, his riddled cap on the muzzle of 
his gun. 

Useless to tell you that a great business in hunt- 
ing-caps is done in that town. Some of the hat- 
makers even keep torn and riddled hats for the 


7 


The Hunters of Caps . 

ciumsy; but no one has ever been known to buy 
them, except Bezuquet the apothecary. It is dis- 
honourable. 

As a hunter of caps Tartarin of Tarascon had 
not his equal. Every Sunday morning he started 
forth with a new cap, every Sunday evening he 
returned with a ragged one. The garrets of the • 
little house of the baobab were full of these glori- 
ous trophies. Thus the Tarasconese, one and all, 
considered him their leader, and as Tartarin knew 
to its depths the sportsman’s code, and had read 
all treatises, all manuals of all possible hunts, from 
the hunt of the cap to the hunt of the Burmese 
tiger, his compatriots had made him their arbiter 
and judge of venery, and took him as their umpire 
in all their disputations. 

Every day, from three to four, at the shop of the 
gunsmith Costecalde, could be seen a stout man, 
grave, a pipe between his teeth, seated in a green 
leather arm-chair, in the midst of a shopful of cap- 
hunters, all standing and squabbling. This was 
Tartarin of Tarascon, delivering judgment. A 
Nimrod lined with Solomon, 


8 


Tartarin of Tarascon . 


III. 

Nan ! Nan / Nan / 

Continuation of the general coup d'oeil cast upon 
the good town of Tarascon. 

To a passion for sport the stalwart Tarasconese 
race added another passion ; that of romantic 
song. The amount of romantic poesy consumed 
in that small region is not to be believed. All 
the aged sentimentalities yellowing in the oldest 
receptacles will be found at Tarascon in full youth 
and glory. They are all there, all. Every family 
has its own, and the whole town knows it. They 
know, for example, that that of the apothecary 
Bezuquet is : — 

“ Thou ! purest star whom I adore.* 

That of the gunsmith Costecalde : — 

“ Wilt thou come to the land of the flat-bottomed boats ? ” 
That of the receiver of registrations : — 

“ If I were invisible, none could see me.” 

( Comic song.) . 

And so on, throughout Tarascon. Two or three 
times a week they meet at their several houses and 
sing them to one another. The singular thing is 
that these songs are always the same, and that, long 


9 


The Good Town of Tar as con, 

as the worthy Tarasconese have sung them, they 
have no desire for change. They bequeath them 
in families, from father to son, and no one meddles 
with them ; those songs are sacred. Never are 
they even borrowed. Never w T ould the idea come 
to a Costecalde to sing the song of a Bezuquet, nor 
to a Bezuquet to sing that of a Costecalde. And 
yet, as you can well believe, they must know them 
after hearing them sung for forty years. But no ! 
each keeps his own, and all are content 

In song as in caps, the first in the town was still 
Tartarin. His superiority over his fellow-citizens 
consisted in this : Tartarin of Tarascon had no song 
of his own. He had them all. 

All! 

Only, it took the devil and all to make him sing 
them. Retiring, early from mere salon successes, 
the Tarasconese hero much preferred to plunge 
into his sporting books or pass his evening at the 
club, to playing swain at a piano from Nimes, be- 
tween two Tarasconese wax candles. Such musi- 
cal parades he thought beneath him. Sometimes, 
however, when there was music at Bezuquet’s phar- 
macy, he would drop in, as if by chance, and, after 
getting himself much entreated, would consent to 
sing the great duet in “ Robert le Diable ” with 
Madame Bezuquet mbe. . . He who never heard 
that has heard nothing. . . As for me, if I should 
live a hundred years I should all my life see the 
great Tartarin approaching the piano with solemn 
step, resting his elbows upon it, making his grimace, 
and — beneath the green reflection of the bottles in 


io Tar tar in of Taras con. 

the window — endeavouring to give to his worthy 
face the satanic and savage expression of Robert 
le Diable. Scarcely had he taken position before 
the whole salon quivered; it was felt that some- 
thing grand was about to occur. Then, after a 
silence, Madame Bezuquet mtre, accompanying 
herself, began : — 

“Robert! thou I love, 

Who hast my faith, 

Thou see’st my terror ( 'repeat ), 

Mercy for thee ! 

Mercy for me ! ” 

Then in a low voice: “ Now you, Tartarin; ” 
and Tartarin of Tarascon, arm extended, fist 
clenched, nostril quivering, said three times in a 
formidable voice, which rolled like thunder through 
the bowels of the piano : “ Non ! . . non ! . . 
non ! . pronounced by the worthy Southerner : 
“ Nan ! . . nan ! . . nan ! . On which Madame 
Bezuquet mere repeated : — 

“ Mercy for thee ! 

Mercy for me ! ” 

“ Nan ! . . nan ! . . nan ! . roared Tartarin, finer 
than ever, and matters stopped there. . . It was not 
long, as you see, but so well ejaculated, so well 
simulated, so diabolical, that a shudder of terror 
ran through the pharmacy, and they made him 
begin his: “Nan! . . nan! . over again, four or 
five times. 

After which Tartarin mopped his forehead, 


The Good Town of Tar as con. 1 1 

smiled at the ladies, winked at the men, and, retir- 
ing on his laurels, went off to the club to remark 
with a careless air : “ I have just been singing the 
duet in Robert le Diable at the Bezuquets’.” 

And the best of it was, he believed it. 


12 


Tartarin of Taras con. 


iV. 

They!!! 

It was to all these different talents that Tartarin 
of Tarascon owed his high situation in the town. 

At any rate, it is a positive thing that that devil 
of a man had known how to captivate everybody. 

The army was for Tartarin — in Tarascon. 
The brave Commander Bravida, captain of equip- 
ment, retired, said of him : “ He ’s a lapin [deter- 
mined fellow, army term] ; ” and you may well 
think the commander was knowing in lapins } hav- 
ing clothed so many of them. 

The magistracy was for Tartarin. Two or three 
times in open court the old judge Ladeveze had 
said, speaking of him : — 

“ There ’s a man of spirit ! ” 

And, finally, the populace was for Tartarin. 
His sturdy make, his bearing, his air, that air of a 
trumpeter’s horse that fears no noises, his reputa- 
tion of a hero, which came from nobody knows 
where, certain distributions of two-sous pieces, and 
pats on the head to the little shoe-blacks sprawling 
at his gate, had made him the Lord Seymour of 
the region, the King* of the Tarasconese markets. 
On the quays, of a Sunday evening, when Tartarin 
returned from the chase, his cap on the muzzle of 


13 


They ! / / 

his gun, and well-girthed in his fustian jacket, the 
porters of the Rhone saluted him, full of respect, 
showing to one another with a clip of the eye the 
gigantic biceps that rolled upon his arm, and say- 
ing, in tones of admiration: “He’s strong, he is f 
he has double muscles.” 

Double muscles ! 

It is only in Tarascon that you can hear things 
like that. 

And yet, in spite of all, with his numerous tal- 
ents, double muscles, popular favour, and the 
esteem, so precious, of the brave Commander 
Bravida, retired captain of equipment, Tartarin 
was not happy ; that life of a small town weighed 
upon him, smothered him. The great man of 
Tarascon was bored at Tarascon. The fact is, that 
for a nature so heroic as his, for a soul so adven- 
turous and ardent, which dreamed of battles, splen- 
did hunts, sands of the desert, rambles on the 
pampas, hurricanes and typhoons, to spend his 
Sundays in a battue of caps and the rest of his 
days in laying down the law at the gunsmith’s shop 
was really nothing, nothing at all ! . . Poor dear 
great man ! It was enough, in course of time, to 
make him die of consumption. 

In vain — to enlarge his horizons and forget for 
a moment the club and the market-place — in vain 
did he surround himself with baobabs and other 
tropical vegetations; in vain did he heap up 
weapons upon weapons, Malay krishes on Malay 
krishes; in vain did he stuff his mind with ro- 
mantic reading, striving, like the immortal Don 


14 Tartar in of Tarascon . 

Quixote, to wrench himself by the vigour of his 
dream from the claws of a pitiless reality. . . Alas ! 
all that he did to slake his thirst for adventure only 
increased it. The sight of his weapons kept him 
in a state of perpetual wrath and excitement. His 
rifles, his arrows, his lassos cried to him : “ Battle ! 
battle ! battle ! ” Through the branches of his 
baobab the wind of mighty travels whistled and 
gave him evil counsels, and, to cap it all, Gustave 
Aimard, Fenimore Cooper! . . 

Ah ! on those heavy summer afternoons, when 
he was alone in the midst of his blades, how many 
a time did Tartarin rise up roaring, and, casting 
away his book, precipitate himself upon that wall 
to snatch down a panoply ! 

The poor man forgot he was at home in Taras- 
con, with a foulard on his head and flannel draw- 
ers around his loins ; he put his reading into action, 
and, exciting himself more and more by the sound 
of his own voice, he cried aloud, brandishing an 
axe or a tomahawk : — 

“ Come on ! . . They come ! . . ” 

They ! Who, They ? 

Tartarin did not very well know himself. They / 
Why, all who attack, all who combat, all who bite, 
all who claw, all who scalp, all who roar. . . They l 
Why, the Indian Sioux dancing their war dance 
round the stake to which the white man is bound. 

T was the grisly bear of the Rocky Mountains, 
licking himself with his bloody tongue. T was 
the Bedouin of the desert, the Malay pirate, the 
bandit of the Abruzzi. . . They ! in short, ’twas 


They ! / / 15 

they ! that is to say, war, travel, adventures, 
glory. 

But alas ! they were summoned in vain by the 
intrepid Tarasconese; in vain were they defied, 
they came not. . . PecaM ! what could they have 
found to do in Tarascon? 

Nevertheless, they were always expected by 
Tartarin; especially in the evening when he went 
to the club. 


i6 


Tartarin of Tarascon. 


V. 


When Tartarin went to the club. 

The Knight Templar preparing to make a sortie 
against the besieging Infidel, the Chinese tiger 
equipping himself for battle, the Comanche war- 
rior entering the war-path, were as nought com- 
pared with Tartarin of Tarascon arming himself 
cap-a-pie to go to the club at nine in the evening 
— one hour after the bugles had sounded tattoo. 

“ Prepare for action ! ” as the sailors say. 

In his left hand Tartarin took a knuckle-duster 
with iron points; in his right hand a sword-cane; 
in his left-hand pocket was a tomahawk; in the 
right-hand pocket a revolver. On his breast, be- 
tween cloth and flannel, a Malay krish. But never 
a poisoned arrow; such weapons are too disloyal ! . . 

Before starting, in the silence and shade of his 
study, he practised for a moment; parrying, let- 
ting fly at the wall, exercising his muscles. Then 
he took his latch-key, and crossed the garden 
gravely, not hurrying — English fashion, messieurs, 
English fashion ; that is true courage. At the end 
of the garden he unlocked the iron gate ; then he 
opened it suddenly, violently, so that it swung 
back rapidly outside, against the wall. . . If they 
had been behind it, think what marmalade ! Un- 
fortunately, they were not behind it. 


When Tartarin went to the Club . 17 

The gate open, Tartarin went out, cast a rapid 
glance to right and left, turned round, double- 
locked the gate behind him, and then, forward ! 

On the road to Avignon, not a cat. Gates 
closed, windows darkened. All was black. Here 
and there a street-lamp blinked through the river 
fog. . . 

Lofty and calm, Tartarin of Tarascon advanced 
into the night; making his boot-heels ring in 
rhythm, and striking sparks from the pavement 
with the iron tip of his cane. Boulevards, wide 
streets, or alleys, he was careful to keep to the 
middle of the road ; excellent measure of precau- 
tion, which enables you to see an approaching 
danger, and also to avoid fc what is apt, at night, in 
the streets of Tarascon, to fall from the windows. 
In seeing him thus prudent, do not think for a 
moment that Tartarin was afraid. . . No ! he was 
only careful. 

The best proof that Tartarin was not afraid is 
that, instead of going to the club by the public 
promenade, he went through the town ; that is, by 
the longest and darkest way, through a nest of 
villanous little streets, at the end of which the 
Rhone is seen to glitter ominously. The poor 
man always hoped that in passing some angle of 
these cut-throat alleys they would spring from the 
shadow and fall upon his back. Had they done 
so, they would have been well received, I ’ll ans- 
wer for it. . . But alas ! by the derision of fate, 
never, eternally never, did Tartarin of Tarascon 
have even the chance of a dangerous encounter. 


1 8 Tartarin of Taras con. 

Not a dog. Not so much as a drunken man. 
Nothing ! 

Occasionally, however, a false alarm. A sound 
of steps and smothered voices. “ Attention ! ” 
said Tartarin to himself; and he stood stock-still, 
planted on the ground, scrutinizing the shadows, 
scenting the wind, putting his ear, Indian fashion, 
to the earth. . . The steps approached. The voices 
grew distinct. . . Doubt was at an end. They were 
coming. They came. Tartarin, his eye flaming, 
his chest heaving, was gathering himself together, 
like a jaguar, prepared to bound while uttering 
his war-cry . . . when, all of a sudden, from the 
bosom of the darkness came virtuous Tarasconese 
voices, calling to him, tranquilly: “Hey, hey! 
Tartarin, good-night, Tartarin.” 

Maledictions ! ’t was B^zuquet, with his family, 
on the way home after singing his at Costecalde’s. 
“ Good-night ! good-night ! ” growled Tartarin, furi- 
ous at the mistake; then, savage, with uplifted 
cane he plunged into the darkness. 

Reaching the street of his club, the intrepid 
Tartarin waited a moment, walking up and down 
before he entered. . . At last, weary of waiting, and 
certain now that they would not show themselves, 
he cast a last look of defiance into the shades, and 
muttered angrily : “Nothing! . .nothing! . . Ever* 
lastingly nothing ! . 

Thereupon the brave man entered the club and 
played his b^sique with Commander Bravida. 


The two TartarinSs 


19 


VI. 


The two Tartar ins. 

WtTH this mania for adventure, this need of 
strong emotions, this passion for travel, for roam- 
ing, this devil at grass, how the -deuce was it that 
Tartarin of Tarascon had never left Tarascon? 

For that is a fact. Until he was forty-five years 
old the intrepid Tartarin had never once slept out 
of his town. He had not even made the famous 
journey to Marseilles which every good Provencal 
owes to himself on attaining his majority. It is 
doubtful if he knew Beaucaire ; and yet Beaucaire 
is not very far from Tarascon, for there is only the 
bridge to cross. Unfortunately, that bridge has so 
often been swept away by hurricanes ; it is so long, 
so frail, the Rhone is so wide just there, that — well, 
well ! you understand. . . Tartarin of Tarascon pre- 
ferred terra firma. 

The fact is, it must now be owned to you, that 
there were in our hero two very distinct natures. 
“ I find two men within me,” said a Father of the 
Church — I do not remember which. It was true 
of Tartarin, who bore within him the soul of a Don 
Quixote; the same chivalric impulse, the same 
heroic ideal, the same passion for the romantic 
and the grandiose ; but, unfortunately, he had not 


20 Tartarin of Tar as con, 

the body of the famous hidalgo ; that thin and 
bony body, that pretext of a body, on which ma- 
terial life could get no grip ; a body capable of 
sitting up for twenty nights without unbuckling its 
cuirass, and of going forty hours on a handful of 
rice. . . Tartarin’s body, on the contrary, was a 
good fellow of a body, very fat, very heavy, very 
sensual, very luxurious, very exacting, full of bour- 
geois appetites and domestic requirements, the 
short and pot-bellied body on paws of the immor- 
tal Sancho Panza, 

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza in the same 
man ! you understand what a household that must 
have made ! what struggles ! what wrenchings ! . . 

Oh, the fine dialogue that a Lucian or Saint-Evre- 
mond could write ! a dialogue between the two 
Tartarins, Tartarin-Quixote and Tartarin-Sancho ! 
Tartarin-Ouixote inspired by the tales of Gustave 
Aimard and crying aloud : “ I go ! ” Tartarin-San- 
cho, thinking only of his rheumatism, and saying : 
“ I stay.” 

Tartarin-Quixote, all enthusiasm. 

Cover thyself with glory, Tartarin. 

Tartarin-Sancho, calmly. 

Cover thyself with flannel, Tartarin. 

Tartarin-Quixote, more and more enthusiastic . 

Oh, the fine rifles ! the double-barrelled rifles ! 

Oh, the daggers, the lassos, the moccasins! 


The two Tartarins. 


21 


Tartarin-Sancho, more calmly still . 

Oh, those knitted waistcoats ! those good warm 
knee-wraps ! those excellent caps with ear-pads ! 

Tartarin- Quixote, beside himself. 

An axe ! an axe ! bring me an axe ! 

Tartarin-Sancho, ringing for the maid. 

Jeannette, my chocolate. 

Whereupon Jeannette appears with excellent 
chocolate, hot, foamy, perfumed, and a certain 
succulent toast made of anise-seed bread, which 
cause a smile on the face of Tartarin-Sancho while 
they stifle the cries of Tartarin-Quixote. 

That is how it happened that Tartarin of Taras- 
con had never left Tarascon. 


22 


Tartarin of Tarascon. 


VII. 

Europeans at Shanghai. 

Higher Commerce. Tartars . 

Can it be that Tartarin of Tarascon is an impostor ? 

Once, however, Tartarin came near departing — ■ 
departing on a great journey. 

The three brothers Garcio-Camus, Tarasconese 
persons who had settled at Shanghai, offered him 
the management of one of their counting-rooms 
over there. That, indeed, was the very life that 
would have suited him. Business of importance ; 
an army of clerks to govern ; relations with Rus- 
sia, Persia, Turkey in Asia, — in short, the Higher 
Commerce. 

In the mouth of Tartarin those words, “ Higher 
Commerce,” revealed to you heights ! . . 

The house of Garcio-Camus had, moreover, this 
advantage : at times it was threatened with a visit 
from Tartars. Then, quick ! the doors were 
closed. All the clerks seized weapons, the con- 
sular flag was hoisted, and pan ! pan ! through the 
windows at the Tartars. 

I do not need to tell you with what enthusiasm 
Tartarin-Quixote jumped at the proposition. Un- 
happily, Tartarin-Sancho did not hear of it with 
the same ear, and, as he was the stronger, the mat- 


23 


Europeans at Shanghai \ 

ter could not be arranged. In the town of Taras- 
con much was said about it: “Will he go?” 
“Will he not go?” “I bet yes.” “I bet no.” 
’T was an event. . . In the end, Tartarin did not go. 
Still, it was a tale that did him much honour. To 
have failed to go to Shanghai, or to have gone, 
proved to be all the same for Tartarin. By dint 
of talking about that journey, people ended by 
believing he had returned from it; so that in the 
evenings, at the club, all those gentlemen asked 
him for information about the life in Shanghai, its 
manners and morals, the climate, opium, and 
Higher Commerce. 

Tartarin, very well informed, gave with a good 
grace the details demanded ; so that in course of 
time the worthy man was not very sure himsel* 
that he had not been to Shanghai ; in fact, after 
relating for the hundredth time a Tartar raid, he 
said, quite naturally: “ I then armed all the clerks, 
hoisted the consular flag, and pan ! pan ! through 
the windows at the Tartars.” Hearing that, the 
club quivered. . . 

“But, then,” you say, “your Tartarin was a 
shocking liar.” 

No ! a thousand times no ! Tartarin was not a 
liar — 

“But he must have known he did not go to 
Shanghai ! ” 

Yes, no doubt he knew it. Only . . . 

Only — now listen to this. It is time to come 
to an understanding once for all about that reputa- 
tion for lying which the men of the North have 


24 Tartarin of Tar as con. 

put upon Southerners. There are no liars in the 
South, neither at Marseilles, nor Nimes, nor Tou- 
louse, nor Tarascon. The man of the South does 
not lie, he deceives himself. He does not always 
tell the truth, but he thinks he does. . . A lie in 
him is not a lie, it is a species of mirage. . . 

Yes, mirage. . . In order to understand me per- 
fectly, go to the South, and you will see. You 
will see that devil of a land where the sun trans- 
figures everything and makes it grander than 
nature. You will see those little hills of Provence 
that are no higher than the heights of Montmartre, 
but they will seem to you gigantic. You will see 
that Maison-Carree at Nimes — a little gem of a 
doll’s house — and you will think it grander than 
Notre-Dame. You will see. . . Ha ! the sole liar 
in the South (if there is one) is the sun. . . All 
that he touches he exaggerates. . . What was 
Sparta in the days of its splendour? A straggling 
village. . . What was Athens? At the most a 
sub-prefecture . . . and yet in history they appear 
to us enormous cities. That is what the sun has 
made them. 

After that, will you feel surprised that the same 
sun, falling on Tarascon, should have made of 
a retired captain of equipment like Bravida the 
brave Commander Bravida, out of a turnip a bao- 
bab, out of a man who failed to go to Shanghai a 
man who had been there? 


The Menagerie Mitaine. 


25 


VIII. 

The Menagerie Mitaine. 

A lion of the Atlas i?i Tarascon. 

Terrible atid solemn interview . 

And now that we have shown Tartarin of Taras- 
con as he was in private life, before fame had kissed 
his brow and crowned it with the laurel of cen- 
turies, now that we have pictured that heroic life 
in its modest environment, in its joys, its sorrows, 
its dreams, its hopes, let us hasten to reach the 
grand pages of his history, and the singular event 
that was fated to give wings to his incomparable 
destiny. 

T was evening, in the shop of the gunsmith 
Costecalde. Tartarin of Tarascon was in the act 
of explaining to certain amateurs the proper ma- 
nipulation of a needle-gun, then in all its novelty. 
Suddenly the door opened, and a cap-hunter pre- 
cipitated himself, breathless, into the shop, crying 
out : “ A lion ! . . a lion ! . .” Stupor, terror, tumult, 
jostling. Tartarin fixed bayonet. Costecalde ran 
to lock the door. The hunter was surrounded, 
questioned, pressed; and this was what they 
learned : the Menagerie Mitaine, returning from 
the fair at Beaucaire, had consented to halt for a 
few days at Tarascon, and had just installed itself 


26 Tartarin of Tar as con, 

on the Place du Chateau, with a mass of boas, 
phocas, crocodiles, and — a magnificent lion of the 
Atlas. 

A lion of the Atlas in Tarascon ! Never within 
the memory of man had such a thing been seen 
before. How proudly did our brave sportsmen of 
caps turn their eyes to one another ! What gleams 
upon their manly faces in the darkest corner of 
that shop of Costecalde’s. What graspings of the 
hands were silently exchanged ! The emotion 
was so great, so unexpected that no one could find 
a word to say. . . 

Not even Tartarin. Pale and quivering, the 
needle-gun still in his hand, he stood, reflecting, 
before the counter. A lion of the Atlas, there, close 
by, not two steps off! A lion ! in other words, the 
heroic and ferocious animal par excellence , the 
king of wild beasts, the game of his dreams; 
the first object, as one might say, of that ideal 
troop which played such splendid dramas in his 
fancy. 

A lion, ye gods ! . . 

And a lion of the Atlas ! ! 'T was more than the 
great Tartarin could bear. . . 

A rush of blood flew suddenly to his face. 

His eyes flamed. With a convulsive gesture he 
flung the needle-gun upon his shoulder and turn- 
ing to the brave Commander Bravida, retired cap- 
tain of equipment, he said to him, in a voice of 
thunder : “ Let us go, commander, and see THAT.” 

“ Hey ! but . . . hey ! . . My gun, my needle- 
gun, you are taking with you,” objected timidly 


27 


The Menagerie Mitaine. 

the prudent Costecalde. But Tartarin was already 
in the street, and behind him were the cap-hunters, 
proudly keeping step. 

When they reached the menagerie a crowd had 
already collected. Tarascon, race heroic, too 
long deprived of sensations and sights, had rushed 
to the barrack Mitaine and taken it by storm. 
Consequently, the stout Madame Mitaine was well 
content. . . Attired in Kabylese costume, arms 
bare to the elbow, iron bracelets round her ankles, 
a whip in one hand, a live fowl (though plucked) 
in the other, that illustrious dame did the honours 
of the tent to the worthy Tarasconese burghers ; and 
as she, too, had doable muscles , her success was 
almost as great as that of her animals. 

The entrance of Tartarin, the needle-gun upon 
his shoulder, cast a chill upon the scene. 

All these worthy Tarasconese, walking about 
most tranquilly before the cages, without weapons, 
without fear, without so much as the smallest idea of 
danger, felt a natural sense of terror on seeing the 
great Tartarin enter that tent with his formidable 
engine of war. Surely there must be something to 
fear, since he, that hero ... In the twinkling of an 
eye the space before the cages was left vacant. The 
children screamed with fear ; the ladies looked at 
the door; B^zuquet, the apothecary, slipped out, 
muttering the remark that he would fetch his 
gun. . . 

Little by little, however, Tartarin’s attitude re- 
assured the crowd. Calm, his head held high, that 
intrepid man walked slowly round the enclosuie, 


3 8 Tartarin of Tar as con. 

passed, without pausing, the pool of the phoca, 
glanced with disdainful eye at the box filled with 
bran where the boa was digesting that live, plucked 
hen, and planted himself finally before the cage of 
the king of beasts. 

Terrible and solemn interview! The lion of 
Tarascon and the lion of the Atlas face to face ! . . 
On one side, Tartarin, erect, right leg advanced 
and both arms resting on his rifle ; on the other, 
the lion, a gigantic lion, stretched upon the straw, 
with blinking eyes and stupid aspect, his mon- 
strous muzzle and his yellow wig reposing on his 
fore-paws. . . Both were calm, and gazed upon 
each other. 

Singular result ! whether it was that the needle- 
gun gave him umbrage, or that he scented an 
enemy to his race, the lion, who, up to that time, had 
looked at the Tarasconese with an air of supreme 
contempt while yawning in their faces, the lion was 
suddenly seized with an angry emotion. First, he 
sniffed, growled in an undertone, parted his claws 
and stretched out his paws ; then he rose, erected 
his head, shook that tawny mane, opened his vast 
jaws, and gave vent, eying Tartarin, to a formidable 
roar. 

A cry of terror answered him. All Tarascon, 
mad with fright, rushed to the doors. All — 
women, children, porters, hunters of caps, the 
brave Commander Bravida himself. . . Tartarin 
of Tarascon alone never stirred. . . He stood 
there, firm and resolute before the cage, lightning 
in his eye and that terrible expression the whole 


29 


The Menagerie Mitaine . 

town knew so well upon his face. . . After a 
while the cap-hunters, reassured by his attitude 
and the solidity of the bars, approached their leader 
and heard him murmur, as he gazed at the lion: 
“ That, yes, that is game.” 

For that day, Tartarin of Tarascon said no 
more. . . 


30 


Tartarin of Tar as con. 


IX. 


Singular effects of mirage. 

That day, Tartarin of Tarascon said no more; 
but the hapless man had already said too much. . . 

The next day nothing was talked of in the town 
but the coming departure of Tartarin for Algeria 
to hunt the lion. . . You are witnesses, dear 
readers, that the worthy man had never said one 
word about it; but, mirage — you understand. . . 

In short, all Tarascon talked of this departure. 

On the promenade, at the club, in Costecalde’s 
shop, men approached each other to say, with 
haggard air: — 

“ And otherwise, you know the news, at least? ” 

“ And otherwise, of course ! . . Tartarin’s depar- 
ture, at least? ” 

At Tarascon all sentences begin with et aatrc- 
ment (there pronounced antremaiii ) , and end with 
ail moins (pronounced au mouain). On this occa- 
sion above all others, the “ at leasts,” and the 
“ otherwises,” resounded through the town till the 
windows rattled. 


The most surprised man in all Tarascon at the 
news that he was going to Africa was Tartarin 


3i 


Singular Effects of Mirage . 

himself. But see what vanity will do ! Instead 
of simply answering that he was not going at all, 
and had never had any intention of going, poor 
Tartarin, the first time the journey was mentioned 
to him, assumed an evasive air : “ Hey ! . . hey ! . . 
perhaps. . . I can’t say.” The second time, being 
rather more familiar with the idea, he answered : 
“ Probably.” The third time : “ Certainly.” 

Finally, one evening at the club and at the gun- 
smith’s, led away by an egg-punch, the lights, and 
the cheering, — drunk, in short, with the applause 
that the news of his departure had evoked, — the 
unhappy man declared formally that he was weary 
of hunting caps and was about, before long, to set 
forth in pursuit of the lions of Africa. . . 

This declaration was greeted with a thundering 
hurrah. On which, more egg-punch, grasping of 
hands, accolades, and a torch-light serenade in 
front of the little house of the baobab. 

But Tartarin-Sancho was far from happy. This 
idea of a journey to Africa and of hunting the 
lions of Atlas gave him chills down his back ; and 
while that serenade of honour was still sounding 
beneath his windows Tartarin-Sancho made Tar- 
tarin-Quixote a terrible scene, calling him crazy, 
visionary, imprudent, a triple fool, and minutely 
detailing the many catastrophes that awaited him : 
shipwreck, rheumatism, fevers, dysenteries, black 
death, elephantiasis, and all the rest of them. . . 

In vain did Tartarin-Quixote swear he would 
commit no imprudence; he would wrap himself 
up, he would carry with him whatever he needed. 


32 Tartarin of Tar as con. 

Tartarin-Sancho listened to nothing. Already he 
saw himself torn to bits by the lions, or engulfed 
in the sands of the desert like the late Cambyses ; 
the other Tartarin could succeed in pacifying him 
only by the reminder that this departure was not 
immediate, there was no hurry, and, after all, they 
were not yet gone. 

It is plain, of course, that no one starts on an 
expedition like that without taking certain precau- 
tions. In the first place, one has to know where 
one is going ; how the devil could one start like a 
bird? . . 

Therefore, before all things else, Tartarin of Tar- 
ascon determined to read the narratives of the 
famous African tourists, Mungo Park, Caille, Dr. 
"Livingstone, Henri Duveyrier. 

There he found that those intrepid travellers, 
before they buckled on their sandals for distant 
enterprises, prepared themselves, long beforehand, 
to endure forced marches, hunger and thirst, and 
all sorts of privations. Tartarin determined to do 
as they did, and from that day forth he fed upon 
nothing but eau bouillie. What is called eau bo?i- 
illie in Tarascon consists of slices of bread steeped 
in hot water with a clove of garlic, a sprig of 
thyme, and a pinch of bay-leaf. The regimen was 
severe ; and you can fancy what a face poor San- 
cho made at it. . . 

To the training of eau bouillie Tartarin of Tar- 
ascon added other wise practices. To acquire the 
habit of long marches, he compelled himself to 
walk round the town seven or eight times every 


33 


Singular Effects of Mirage . 

morning, without stopping, sometimes at a quick- 
step, sometimes in gymnastic fashion, elbows to 
his sides and pebbles in his mouth — according 
to the customs of antiquity. 

Next, to use himself to cold night-air and fogs 
and dew, he went down into the garden every 
evening, alone with his gun, and stayed there 
on watch till ten or eleven o’clock behind the 
baobab. 

And lastly as long as the Menagerie Mitaine 
remained in Tarascon, belated cap-hunters loiter- 
ing at Costecalde’s could see, as they went their 
way home in the darkness, a mysterious human 
being pacing up and down behind the tents. 

*T was Tartarin of Tarascon, getting used to 
hear without a shudder the roaring of the lion 
through the darksome night. 


34 


Tar tar in of Taras con. 


X. 


Previous to departure . 

WHILE Tartarin was thus training himself by all 
sorts of heroic means, Tarascon kept its eyes fixed 
upon him; nothing else was thought of. Cap- 
sport lost all credit; romantic song lay fallow. 
B6zuquet’s piano languished in the pharmacy 
beneath its green covering, on which cantharides 
now lay drying, their stomachs upturned to the 
air. . . Tartarin’s expedition stopped everything 
short. 

The success of the Tarasconese hero in the 
salons was a thing to be seen. People snatched 
him, quarrelled for him, borrowed him, stole him. 
No greater honour for the ladies than to go to 
the menagerie on Tartarin’s arm and make him 
explain, in front of the lion’s cage, how he should 
go to work to hunt those noble beasts, where he 
should aim, at what distance he should stand, and, 
above all, the numerous accidents that were likely 
to befall him. 

Tartarin gave all the explanations demanded of 
him. He had read Jules Gerard, and knew the 
method of hunting lions to the tips of his fingers, 
as if he had practised it. Consequently, he spoke 
on the subject with great eloquence. 


Previous to Departure. 35 

But where he was finest was at dinner in the 
evening with old Judge Ladeveze or the brave 
Commander Bravida (retired captain of equip- 
ment), when coffee was brought, the chairs drawn 
together, and they made him talk of his future 
hunts. . . 

Then, his elbow on the table-cloth, his nose in 
his mocha, the hero related in a voice of emotion 
the perils that awaited him; he told of the long 
night-watches, moonless, the pestilential marshes, 
the rivers poisoned by the leaves of the bay-tree, 
the snows, the scorching suns, the scorpions, the 
rains of grasshoppers. Also he told of the morals 
and customs of the lions of the Atlas, their manner 
of fighting, their phenomenal vigour, and their 
ferocity during the rutting season. . . 

Then, exciting himself with his own eloquence, 
he sprang from the table, bounded into the middle 
of the room, imitating the cry of the lion, the 
discharge of the rifle, pan ! pan ! the whistle of 
the ball, pfift ! pfft ! gesticulating, roaring, and 
knocking over chairs. 

Around the table all were pale. The men 
looked at each other and shook their heads ; the 
ladies shut their eyes with little screams of terror; 
the old men brandished their canes belligerently ; 
and the little boys in the adjoining room, put to 
bed early, wakened with a start by the roaring and 
the shots, demanded lights in mortal terror. 

Meanwhile, however, Tartarin of Tarascon did 
not depart. 


36 


Tar tar in of Tar as con. 


XL 

Sword-thrusts , gentlemen , sword-thrusts . . . 
but no pin-pricks / 

Had he really the intention to go? . . Delicate 
question, to which Tartarin’s historian is puzzled 
to reply. 

It is certain that the Menagerie Mitaine had left 
Tarascon more than three months and still the 
lion-killer did not depart. But, after all, perhaps 
the simple hero, blinded by a new mirage, imag- 
ined in good faith that he had been to Africa. 
Perhaps, by dint of relating his future sport, he 
fancied he had killed his lions as sincerely as he 
believed he had hoisted the consular flag and fired 
on the Tartars, pan ! pan ! at Shanghai. 

Unfortunately, if Tartarin of Tarascon was the 
victim of another mirage, the Tarasconese were 
not ; and when, at the end of three or four months 
of expectation, it became apparent that the hunter 
had not packed a single trunk, they began to 
murmur. 

“ It will be as it was about Shanghai,” said 
Costecalde, smiling; and the gunsmith’s speech 
went the rounds of the town; for no one any 
longer believed in Tartarin. 

Silly people, cowards, men like Bezuquet, whom 
a flea could put to flight and who dared not fire 


Sword-Thrusts, Gentlemen. 37 

a gun without shutting their eyes, were the most 
pitiless. At the club, on the esplanade, they ac- 
costed poor Tartarin with a jeering air. 

“ Et autremain ,” they would say, “ when does 
the trip come off ? ” 

His opinion no longer had weight at the gun- 
smith’s ; even the cap-hunters disowned their 
leader ! 

Epigrams took part in the affair. Judge Lade- 
veze, who, in his hours of leisure, paid willing court 
to the Provengale Muse, composed a song in the 
vernacular which had vast success. It told of a 
certain great hunter, called Maitre Gervais, whose 
doughty gun was expected to exterminate the 
very last of the lions of Africa. Unfortunately, 
that gun had a singular disposition : it was always 
loaded, but it 7iever went off. 

Never went off! You understand the allusion. . . 

In a trice, that song became popular. When 
Tartarin passed the porters on the quay or the 
little shoe-blacks at his own gate, they sang it in 
chorus. 

But at a distance, — on account of his double 
muscles. 

Oh, the fragility of Tarascon enthusiasm! 

The great man himself feigned to see nothing, 
hear nothing; but in his heart this venomous little 
underhand war distressed him much ; he felt that 
Tarascon was slipping through his fingers, that 
popular favour was going to others, and he suf- 
fered horribly. 

Ah ! that great bowl of popularity ! how good 


38 Tartarin of Tarascon . 

to sit down before it, but if it upsets, what 
scalding ! . . 

In spite of his inward suffering, Tartarin smiled, 
and continued tranquilly his same way of life, as if 
nothing were happening. 

Occasionally, however, this mask of gay indif- 
ference, which pride had gummed upon his face, 
became for a moment detached, and then, instead 
of laughter, indignation was visible, and sorrow. . . 

Thus it happened that one morning, when the 
shoe-blacks were singing the song of the gun ol 
Maitre Gervais, the voices of those young rascals 
ascended to the chamber of the poor great man as 
he stood before his glass in the act of shaving 
(Tartarin wore his full beard, but it was a strong 
one, and he was forced to keep an eye upon it) 

Suddenly the window opened violently and the 
hero appeared, in his shirt and night-cap, his face 
in a good white lather, brandishing his razor in 
one hand, his soap-ball in the other, and shouting 
in his formidable voice : — 

“ Sword-thrusts, gentlemen, sword-thrusts, but 
no pin-pricks ! ” 

Noble words, worthy of history ! their only fault 
lay in being addressed to little scamps no taller 
than their blacking-boxes, — gentlemen who were 
quite incapable of even holding a sword. 


The Little House of Baobab . 


39 


XII. 

That which was said in the little house of the baobab. 

In the midst of this general defection the army 
stood firmly by Tartarin. 

The brave Commander Bravida, late captain of 
equipment, continued to show him the same re- 
spect. “He’s a lapinf he persisted in saying; 
and this assertion, I imagine, was worth as much 
as that of the apothecary Bezuquet. . . Not once 
did the brave commander make allusion to that 
African journey. Nevertheless, when public clam- 
our became too strong, he resolved to speak out. 

One evening, while the unfortunate Tartarin was 
sitting alone in his study, thinking of melancholy 
things, he beheld the commander entering the 
room, grave, wearing black gloves, and buttoned 
to the chin. 

“ Tartarin,” said the former captain, in a tone of 
authority, “ Tartarin, you must go ! ” and he stood 
erect in the frame of the doorway — rigid and 
grand as duty. 

All that was contained in those words : “ Tarta- 
rin, you must go ! ” Tartarin of Tarascon com- 
prehended. 

Very pale, he rose, looked about him with a 
touching glance on the pretty room, so cozy, so 


40 Tartarin of Farascon . 

full of warmth and tempered light, on his easy- 
chair, so comfortable, his books, his carpet, the 
large white shades to the windows, behind which 
fluttered the slender branches of his little garden : 
then, advancing to the brave commander, he took 
his hand, and pressing it firmly said in a voice suf- 
fused with tears, — stoical, nevertheless, — “I will 
go, Bravida ! ” 

And he went, as he had said. But not immedi- 
ately. He needed a little time for his outfit. 

First, he ordered from Bompard two large boxes 
lined with copper, on which were brass plates 
bearing this inscription : — 

TARTARIN OF TARASCON. 

WEAPONS. 

The lining of these boxes and the inscriptions 
took a good deal of time. He also ordered from 
Tastavin a magnificent album of travel, in which 
to write his journal, his impressions; for really, 
though you hunt lions, you think all the same on 
the way. 

Next, he sent to Marseilles for quite a cargo of 
preserved aliments, pemmican with which to make 
broth, a shelter-tent of a new pattern capable of 
being put up and taken down in a minute, sailor- 
boots, two umbrellas, a waterproof, blue spec- 
tacles to prevent opthalmia. And, lastly, the 
apothecary Bezuquet put him up a little portable 
pharmacy, stocked with diachylon, arnica, cam- 
phor, vinegar des quatre-voleurs , etc. 


The Little House of Baobab. 41 

Poor Tartarin ! all this that he now did was not 
for himself; but he hoped by dint of precautions 
and delicate attentions to appease the wrath of 
Tartarin-Sancho, who, ever since the departure 
had been finally resolved upon, never ceased to 
be angry, night or day. 


42 


Tartarin of Taras con. 


XIII. 

The departure. 

The day arrived ; the solemn day, the great 
day. 

At early dawn Tarascon was afoot, blocking the 
road to Avignon and the approaches to the little 
house of the baobab. 

People at the windows, on the roofs, on the 
trees; sailors of the Rhone, porters, shoe-blacks, 
burghers, spinners, silk-weavers, the club, — in 
short, the whole town; also the inhabitants of 
Beaucaire, who came across the bridge, the mar- 
ket-gardeners of the suburbs and their carts with 
great awnings, vine-dressers, perched on handsome 
mules tricked out with ribbons, tassels, bells ; and 
even, here and there, some pretty girls from Arles, 
with sky-blue ribbons round their heads, brought 
by their lovers, eti croupe } on the little gray horses 
of the Camargue. 

The whole crowd pressed and jostled one an- 
other round Tartarin’s gate — that good M. Tar- 
tarin, who was going to kill lions among the Teurs . 

To the Tarasconese mind, Algiers, Africa, Greece, 
Persia, Turkey, Mesopotamia form one great coun- 
try, very vague, almost mythological, and it goes 
by the name of les Teurs (the Turks). 


43 


The Departure. 

In the midst of this tumultuous crowd the cap- 
hunters went and came, proud of the triumph of 
their chief, their passage tracing furrows of glory 
through the multitude. 

Before the house of the baobab stood two great 
barrows. From time to time the gate was opened, 
so that certain persons walking gravely in the gar- 
den could be seen. Porters brought trunks, boxes, 
carpet-bags, and piled them on the barrows. 

As each new package appeared, the crowd quiv- 
ered. The various objects were named aloud. 

“ There ! that ’s the shelter-tent. . . Those are 
the preserved things. . . There ’s the pharmacy . . . 
and the weapons,” — about which the cap-sports- 
men gave explanations. 

Suddenly, towards ten o’clock, a great stir took 
place in the crowd. The gate swung violently on 
its hinges. 

“ ’T is he ! . . ’t is he ! . . ” they cried. 

It was he. . . 

When he appeared on the threshold two cries of 
stupefaction issued from the crowd. 

“ It is a Teur ! . . ” 

“ He wears spectacles ! ” 

Tartarin of Tarascon had felt it his duty, as he 
was going to Algiers, to assume an Algerian cos- 
tume, — full trousers of white linen, a short tight- 
fitting jacket with metal buttons, two feet of waist- 
band, red, round his stomach, throat bare, forehead 
shaved, and on his head a gigantic chechia (scarlet 
fez) with a blue woollen tassel, of a length ! ! . . On 
each shoulder a heavy gun, a large hunting-knife 


44 Tartarin of Tarascon . 

in his belt, upon his stomach a cartridge-box, 
upon his hip a revolver, swinging in a leathern 
pocket. That was all. . . 

Oh ! excuse me, I forgot the spectacles, which 
came in, very apropos, to correct a little something 
that was rather too savage in our hero’s outfit. 

“ Vive Tartarin ! . . vive Tartarin ! . . ” shouted 
the people. The great man smiled, but did not 
bow, his guns hindered him. Besides, he knew by 
this time what popular favour was worth ; perhaps, 
in the depths of his soul, he may even have cursed 
his terrible compatriots, who compelled him to 
depart and to leave his pretty little home with its 
white walls and its green blinds. . . But if this 
were so, it did not appear. 

Calm and proud, though a trifle pale, he ad- 
vanced to the roadway, looked at his barrows, and 
then, seeing that all was right, he took his way 
jauntily to the station, without so much as once 
glancing back to the house of the baobab. Behind 
him marched the brave Commander Bravida, re- 
tired captain of equipment, and Judge Ladeveze, 
then came the gunsmith Costecalde and all the 
sportsmen, then the barrows, then the populace. 

In front of the station the station-master awaited 
him — an old African of 1830, who pressed his 
hand warmly several times. 

The Paris-Marseilles express had not yet ar- 
rived. Tartarin and his staff entered the waiting- 
room. To avoid the pressure of a crowd, the 
station-master ordered the iron gates to be closed 
behind them. 


45 


The Departure . 

Tartarin walked up and down for fifteen minutes 
in the midst of his friends and the hunters. He 
spoke to them of his journey, of his noble game, 
and promised to send them skins. They wrote 
their names upon his tablets for a skin as they did 
at a ball for a country dance. 

Tranquil and gentle as Socrates ere he drank 
the hemlock, the intrepid hero had a word for 
each, a smile for all. He spoke simply, with an 
affable air; you would have thought that before 
departing he wished to leave behind him a trail, 
as it were, of charm, regrets, kind memories. 
Hearing their chief speak thus to them, all the 
cap-men shed tears ; some even felt remorse, 
among them Judge Ladeveze and Bezuquet, the 
apothecary. 

The train men wept in corners. Outside, the 
populace gazed through the bars and shouted: 
“ Vive Tartarin ! ” 

At last the bell rang. A dull rumbling, a shrill 
whistle, shook the roof. . . “ Take your places, 

messieurs, your places ! ” 

“ Adieu, Tartarin! . . adieu, Tartarin! . . ” 

“ Adieu, all ! ” murmured the hero, and on the 
cheek of the brave Commander Bravida he kissed 
his dear Tarascon. 

Then he sprang upon the track and jumped into 
a carriage that was full of gay Parisian women, 
who nearly died of fear on seeing this strange man 
of carbines and revolvers in their midst. 


4 6 


Tartarin of Tar as con. 


XIV. 

The port of Marseilles. Embark J 
Embark 1 

On the 1st of December, 186-, at mid-day, 
under a Provencal winter sun, weather clear, bril- 
liant, splendid, the terrified Marseillais beheld the 
arrival of a Teur, oh ! such a Teur! . . Never had 
they seen one like him ; yet God knows Teurs are 
never lacking in Marseilles — I mean Turks. 

The Teur in question (need I tell you) was 
Tartarin of Tarascon, marching along the quays, 
followed by his case of weapons, his apothecary’s 
shop, his preserved aliments, and so forth, in order 
to reach the packet-boat “ Zouave,” which was 
destined to carry him over there. 

Tartarin, his ears still ringing with Tarasconese 
applause, intoxicated with the light of the sky 
and the smell of the sea, Tartarin radiant, marched 
along, his guns on his shoulders, his head high, 
looking with all his eyes at that marvellous port 
of Marseilles, which he now saw for the first time, 
and which fairly dazzled him. . . The poor man 
thought he dreamed. He imagined he was Sin- 
bad the Sailor, wandering in one of those fantastic 
towns he had read of in the “ Arabian Nights.” 


47 


The Port of Marseilles . 

A tangle of masts and yards, lost to sight in 
the distance and crossing one another in every 
direction. Flags of all nations, Russian, Greek, 
Swedish, Tunisian, American . . . Vessels moved to 
the quays, their bowsprits lying along the marge 
like rows of bayonets. Above them naiads, god- 
desses, Holy Virgins, and other wooden carvings, 
all painted, and giving their names to the various 
vessels; but each defaced by the salt sea-waves, 
rotten, damp, and oozing. . . Here and there, be- 
tween the vessels, was a patch of sea, like a large 
piece of moire silk spotted with oil. . . Beyond were 
flocks of gulls, making pretty objects through the 
interlacing yards on the clear blue sky, while the 
cabin-boys below were calling to each other in all 
known languages. 

On the quay, amid rivulets coming from the 
soap manufactories, green, thick, blackish, brimful 
of oil and soda, were crowds of custom-house 
officers, messengers, porters with their bogheys, to 
which were harnessed little Corsican horses ; shops 
filled with queerly made garments, and smoky 
hovels where sailors cooked their food ; sellers of 
pipes, sellers of monkeys and parrots; piles of 
ropes, sailcloth, fantastic bric-a-brac, among which 
were jumbled pell-mell ancient culverins, huge 
gilded lanterns, old tackle, old toothless anchors, 
old cordage, old pulleys, old speaking-trumpets, 
and spyglasses of the time of Jean Bart and Du- 
guay-Trouin. Hawkers of mussels and periwinkles 
were crouching and bawling beside their shell-fish ; 
sailors were passing with pots of tar and smoking 


4 8 Tartarin of Tar as con, 

saucepans and large baskets full of pulp, which 
they took to rinse in the running water of the 
fountains. 

Everywhere enormous encumbering masses of 
merchandise of all sorts : silks, minerals, rafts of 
wood, pigs of lead, linens, sugars, cabbages, locust- 
beans, sugar-canes, liquorice. The East and the 
West pell-mell. Also great' mounds of Dutch 
cheeses, which the Genoese dye red with their 
hands. 

Farther along was the wheat quay, where the 
stevedores were discharging their sacks on the 
marge from the top of a tall scaffolding. The 
wheat, a golden torrent, rolled down in yellow 
vapour. Men below, in red caps, were sifting it, 
as it came, through enormous sieves of asses’ skin, 
and loading it on carts, which were followed as 
they moved away by a regiment of women and 
children with brooms and baskets to catch the 
gleaning. . . Farther still was the dock for careen- 
ing; where large vessels lay on their sides and 
were singed with burning brush to rid them of sea- 
weed ; their yards almost touching the water, the 
smell of the rosin rising with the muffled noise of 
the carpenters covering the hulls of the ships with 
great plates of copper. 

Occasionally, between the masts, came an open 
space. Through it Tartarin saw the entrance to 
the port, the coming and going of great ships, an 
English frigate leaving for Malta, spruce, well- 
cleansed, her officers in yellow kid gloves; or else 
a great Marseillaise brig leaving her moorings, 


49 


The Port of Marseilles . 

'mid cries and oaths, her captain, in a frock-coat 
and a silk hat, commanding the manoeuvre in the 
Provencal language. Some craft were going with 
the wind, all sails set ; others, away in the distance, 
were coming slowly in, looking through the sun- 
mist as if in mid-air. 

All this while, a fearful racket of carts, the 
“ Oh ! hisse ” of the sailors, oaths, songs, whistles 
of steamboats, drums and bugles of Fort Saint- 
Jean and Fort Saint-Nicolas, chimes from the 
Major, the Accoules, and the Saint-Victor, and, 
over all, the mistral which caught up these noises, 
these clamours, rolled them, shook them, blended 
them with its own weird voice, making a wild, 
heroic, savage music, a paean of departure, a paean 
which created a desire to depart, to go far, to have 
wings. 

To the sound of this splendid blast it was that 
the intrepid Tartarin of Tarascon set sail for the 
land of the lions. 


50 


Tartarin of Tar as con. 


SECOND EPISODE. 

AMONG THE TEURS. 

I. 

The voyage. The five positions of the fez . 

The evening of the third day. Mercy / 

I WOULD, my dear readers, that I were a painter, 
a great painter, to put before your eyes, at the 
head of this second episode, the five positions of 
the fez of Tartarin of Tarascon during its three 
days’ voyage on board the “ Zouave ” between 
France and Algeria. 

First, I would show it to you on the gangway 
at the moment of departure, heroic, superb, a 
lambent glory around that Tarasconese head. 
Next, I would make you see it when the “ Zouave ” 
began on leaving port to caracole upon the billows ; 
you would then behold it quivering, amazed, and 
as if already feeling the first assaults of ill. 

Then, in the gulf of Lyons, as the ship drew 
farther from land and the sea grew rougher, I 
would show it to you grappling with the tempest, 
rising, horrified, on the skull of the hero, its stream- 
ing tassel of blue wool standing on end in the fog 
and the squall. 


5 1 


The Voyage. 

Fourth position Six in the evening; in sight 
of the Corsican coast. The unfortunate fez is now 
seen bending over the bulwarks, lamentably gaz- 
ing into and sounding the sea. . . Finally, fifth and 
last position: below in a narrow cabin, in a bed 
like a bureau-drawer, something amorphous, dis- 
consolate, rolls moaning on a pillow. ’T is the fez, 
the heroic fez of departure, now reduced to the 
commonplace condition of a knitted night-cap 
pulled down over the ears of a convulsed and 
ghastly head. 

Ah ! if the Tarasconese could have seen their 
great Tartarin as he lay in his bureau-drawer in 
the wan sad light which fell through the bull’s-eye, 
amid that fetid odour of kitchen and damp wood, 
that sickening odour of a steamboat; if they could 
have heard the rattle in his throat at every turn of 
the screw, heard him cry for tea every five minutes, 
and swear at the waiters in the feeble voice of an 
infant, how sorry they would feel that they forced 
him to go. . . On my word as an historian, that 
poor Teur was pitiful. Suddenly overtaken by 
nausea, the unfortunate man had neither time nor 
courage to loosen his Algerine belt, or divest him- 
self of his arsenal. The hunting-knife with its 
heavy handle bruised his breast, the strap of the 
revolver flayed his legs. To complete his agony, 
the mutterings of Tartarin-Sancho, who never 
ceased to moan and rail : “ Imbecile that you are ! 
I told you so ! . . Ha ! you would go to Africa ! . . 
Well, here ’s Africa. . . How do you find your- 
self?” 


52 Tartarin of Tar as con. 

Most cruel of all, in the depths of that cabin, 
above his moans, the hapless man could overhear 
the passengers in the great saloon, laughing, eating, 
singing, and playing cards. Society was as joyous 
as it was numerous on board the “ Zouave ” : officers 
rejoining their corps, ladies of the Alcazar of 
Marseilles, strolling players, a rich Mussulman 
returning from Mecca, a Montenegrin prince, very 
facetious, who gave imitations of Ravel and Gil 
Perez. . . Not one of these persons was seasick, and 
they spent their time drinking champagne with the 
captain of the “Zouave,” a stout bon vivant of 
Marseilles, who had households at both ends of his 
trip, and answered to the jovial name of Barbassou. 

Tartarin of Tarascon was bitter against these 
wretches. Their gayety redoubled his qualms. . . 

At last, on the afternoon of the third day, an 
extraordinary commotion, felt and heard through- 
out the vessel, dragged our hero from his torpor. 
A bell rang forward. The heavy boots of the 
sailors were running overhead. “ Go ahead ! . . 
Back ! . .” shouted the hoarse voice of Captain 
Barbassou. 

Then : “ Stop her ! ” — sudden jar, stillness, and 
nothing more. . . Nothing, except the silent sway- 
ing of the steamer from right to left, like a balloon 
in the air. 

This singular stillness terrified Tartarin. “ Mercy 
upon us ! we are sinking ! ” he cried, in a terrible 
voice ; and, recovering his strength as if by magic, 
he bounded from his lair and rushed on deck with 
his arsenal. 


To Arms! To Arms! 


53 


II. 


To arms ! To arms / 

They were not sinking; they had only arrived. 

The “ Zouave ” had entered the roadstead, a 
fine roadstead, with dark, deep water, but silent, 
gloomy, almost deserted. Facing them, on the 
hillside, lay Algiers the White, with its little houses 
of a dead whiteness pressing close together and 
running down to the shore. The barges of the 
washerwomen were on the Meudon slope. Above, 
a broad blue satin sky, but oh ! so blue ! . . 

The illustrious Tartarin, somewhat recovered 
from his fright, gazed at the landscape, and lis- 
tened with respect to the Montenegrin prince, who, 
standing beside him, named the various quarters 
of the city : the Kasbah, the Upper town, the rue 
Bab-Azoun. Very well educated this Montenegrin 
prince — knowing Algeria to the core and speaking 
Arabic fluently. Consequently, Tartarin proposed 
to himself to cultivate the prince’s acquaintance. . . 
All of a sudden the hero saw, along the bulwarks 
against which they were leaning, a row of big 
black hands clutching them from the outside. At 
the same moment a negro’s woolly head appeared 
in front of him, and, before he had time to open 
his mouth, the deck was invaded on all sides by a 


54 Tartarin of Tar as con, 

hundred or more pirates, black, yellow, half-naked, 
hideous, terrible. 

Those pirates ! Tartarin knew them well. . . 
’T was they, yes, they , the famous they he had so 
often sought at night in the streets of Tarascon. 
So here, at last, they had decided to appear ! . . 

At first, surprise glued Tartarin to the spot. But 
when he saw the pirates rushing upon the baggage, 
pulling off the tarpaulins that covered it, and be- 
ginning to pillage the ship, the hero within him 
awoke. Unsheathing his knife, “To arms! to 
arms ! ” he cried to the passengers, and rushed, the 
very first, upon the pirates. 

“ Ques aco ? What ’s the matter? what are you 
about?” cried Captain Barbassou, emerging from 
between decks. 

“ Ah ! here you are, captain. . . Quick, quick ! 
arm your men ! ” 

“ Hey! what for? boiin Diou!” 

“Why, don’t you see? . 

“See what?” 

“ There . . . before you . . . pirates.” 

Captain Barbassou gazed at Tartarin perplexed. 
At this instant a tall devil of a negro ran past them 
with the hero’s pharmacy on his back. 

“ Wretch ! stop ! stop ! ” roared Tartarin, rushing 
forward, his dagger held aloft. 

Barbassou caught him on the jump, and held 
him by that Algerine belt. 

“ Be quiet, tron de Ver! Those are not pirates ; 
there are no pirates now-a-days. . . Those are 
porters.” 


To Arms! To Arms! 


55 


“Porters? . .” 

“ Yes, porters ; come for the baggage, to take it 
ashore. Sheathe your cutlass, give me your ticket, 
and follow that negro, a worthy fellow; he’ll show 
you the way, and even go as far as the hotel if you 
wish it.” 

Slightly confused, Tartarin gave up his ticket 
and, following the negro, descended by the man- 
ropes to a big boat that was dancing up and down 
beside the ship. His property was already in it, 
his trunks, boxes, weapons, and alimentary pre- 
serves. As they filled the whole boat there was 
no use in waiting for other passengers. The tall 
negro clambered on the trunks and squatted like a 
monkey, his knees in his hands. Another negro 
took the oars ; both looked at Tartarin and grinned, 
showing their white teeth. 

Standing in the stern, and making that fearful 
grimace that sent terror to the hearts of his com- 
patriots, the great Tarasconese hero was feverishly 
fingering the handle of his cutlass ; for in spite of 
what Barbassou had said, he was only half reas- 
sured as to the intentions of those ebon-skinned 
porters, who were so unlike the good stevedores 
of his native town. 

Five minutes later the boat reached the landing 
and Tartarin set foot on that little Barbary wharf 
where, three centuries earlier, a Spanish galley- 
slave, Miguel Cervantes by name, prepared — 
beneath the lash of an Algerine overseer — a 
sublime romance, destined to be called “Don 
Quixote.** 


56 


Tartarin of Tar as con. 


III. 

Invocation to Cervantes . Disembarkation. 

Where are the Teurs ? No Teurs . 

Disillusion . 

O Miguel Cervantes Saavedra, if what they 
say is true, if in the places where great men have 
lived something of themselves still lingers and 
floats in the air throughout the ages, that which 
thus remains of thee upon this Barbary coast must 
have quivered with joy in beholding the disembar- 
kation of Tartarin of Tarascon, that wonderful type 
of the Southern Frenchman, in whom are incar- 
nated the heroes of thy book — Don Quixote and 
Sancho Panza. 

The air was warm that day. The sun was rip- 
pling on the quay. Five or six custom-house 
officers and certain Algerines, expectant of news 
from France, were standing about; a few Moors 
crouching on their hams and smoking their long 
pipes ; Maltese sailors hauling in their great nets, 
in which were myriads of sardines glittering between 
the meshes like silver coins. 

But scarcely had Tartarin set foot to land before 
the quay grew lively ; its aspect changed. A band 
of savages, more hideous than the pirates on the 
vessel, sprang up from the pebbles of the beach 


Invocation to Cervantes . 57 

and darted on the new arrival. Tall Arabs, quite 
naked under woollen coverlets, little Moors in rags, 
negroes, Tunisians, Mahonese, M’zabites, hotel 
waiters in white aprons, all yelling, shouting, clutch- 
ing at his clothes, quarrelling for his baggage ; this 
one carrying off his aliments, another his pharmacy, 
and all deafening him in some outlandish jargon 
with the names, unintelligible, of hotels. 

Giddy from the tumult, poor Tartarin went and 
came and cursed and swore, running half demented 
after his various packages, and, not knowing how 
to make himself understood by such barbarians, 
haranguing them in French, in Provencal, and 
finally in Latin, the Latin of Pourceaugnac, rosa , 
the rose, bonus , bona , bonum, — in short, all he 
knew. . . Wasted efforts ! No one listened to 
him. . . Happily a small man, dressed in a tight 
coat with a yellow collar and armed with a long 
cane, intervened, like one of Homer’s gods, in the 
fray, and dispersed the rabble with his stick. This 
was an Algerine policeman. Very politely he 
invited Tartarin to go to the Hotel de l’Europe 
and consigned him to one of the surrounding 
waiters, who carried him off, himself and his bag- 
gage, on several barrows. 

At the first steps which he made in Algiers, 
Tartarin of Tarascon opened wide his eyes. He 
had pictured the place a city of the Orient, fairy- 
like, mythological, something between Constanti- 
nople and Zanzibar. . . He had tumbled into 
another Tarascon ! . . Cafes, restaurants, wide 
streets, four-storied houses, a little macadamized 


58 Tartarin of Tar as con. 

square, where the band of a line regiment was 
playing Offenbach’s polkas, gentlemen on chairs 
drinking beer with pastry, ladies, a few lorettes , 
and soldiers, ever soldiers, and still soldiers, but 
never a Teur ! . . None, that is, but himself. 
Consequently, he found himself rather embar- 
rassed in crossing the square. Everybody stared 
at him. The band stopped playing, leaving Offen- 
bach’s polka with one foot in the air. 

Both guns upon his shoulder, the revolver on 
his hip, fierce and majestic as Robinson Crusoe, 
Tartarin passed gravely through the groups; but 
on arriving at the hotel his strength abandoned 
him. The departure from Tarascon, the port of 
Marseilles, the voyage, the Montenegrin prince, 
the pirates, rolled confusedly through his head in 
a muddle. . . They were forced to carry him to 
his chamber, disarm and disrobe him. . . They 
even talked of sending for a doctor. But scarcely 
was his head upon the pillow before the hero snored 
so loudly and heartily that the landlord judged the 
assistance of the sciences to be unnecessary, and 
everybody discreetly retired. 


The First Watch . 


59 


IV. 


The first Watch. 

The Government clock was striking three when 
Tartarin woke up. He had slept all the evening, 
all the night, all the morning, and a good part of 
the afternoon; but it must be remembered that 
for three days and three nights the fez had had a 
hard time. . . 

The first thought of the hero on opening his 
eyes was this : “ I am now in the land of the 
lion ! ” — Why not say it? — at this idea that lions 
were close-by, a step off, almost at his elbow, and 
that the time had come to grapple with them, 
b-r-r-r ! . . a mortal chill laid hold of him and he 
plunged intrepidly beneath the bedclothes. 

But a moment later the gayety out-doors, the 
sky so blue, the sunlight rippling through his 
chamber, the open window looking to the sea, 
the good little breakfast served to him in bed, 
washed down with a flask of excellent Crescia 
wine, restored him quickly to his former heroism. 
“ To the lion ! to the lion ! ” he cried ; and flinging 
back the bedclothes, he dressed himself hastily. 

This was his plan : to leave the town without a 
word to any one, fling himself into the open desert, 
await the night in ambush, and on the first lion 


60 Tartarin of Tarascon . 

that came by, pan ! pan ! . . Then, to return next 
morning for breakfast at the Hotel de l’Europe, 
receive the congratulations of the Algerines, and 
charter a cart to fetch the animal. 

He armed himself therefore in haste, hoisted 
upon his back the shelter-tent, the stout pole of 
which reached to a foot above his head, and, rigid 
as a pile, went down into the street. There, un- 
willing to ask his way lest he should awaken 
inquiry as to his projects, he turned to the right, 
threaded his way to the farther end of the Bab- 
Azoun arcades, where crowds of Algerine Jews, 
ambushed like spiders in the corners of their black 
shops, watched him pass, crossed the Theatre 
square, followed the faubourg, and came at last to 
the dusty highroad of Mustapha. 

The road was fantastically encumbered. Omni- 
buses, hackney-coaches, corricolas, railway-vans, 
hay-waggons drawn by bullocks, squadrons of 
chasseurs d'Afrique , troops of microscopic little 
donkeys, negresses peddling cakes, vehicles of 
Algerine emigrants, spahis in red mantles ; and 
all defiling in clouds of dust amid shouts, songs, 
the blare of trumpets, between two rows of shabby 
huts at the doors of which the tall Mahonese 
women could be seen combing themselves, taverns 
full of soldiers, and the shops of the butchers and 
the horse-meat men. . . 

“ What is all their talk about this Orient?” 
thought Tartarin. “ Why, there are not so many 
Teurs as there are in Marseilles.” 

Suddenly he saw, passing close beside him, 


The First Watch . 


61 


stretching forth its great legs and swelling its neck 
like a turkey, a superb camel. That made his 
heart beat. 

Camels already ! Lions could not be far off ; 
and, sure enough, in about five minutes he saw, 
coming towards him, shouldering their guns, a 
whole troop of lion-hunters. 

“ Cowards ! ” said our hero to himself as he 
passed beside them, “ cowards ! to hunt lions in 
bands! with dogs! . .” For he never imagined 
that anything but lions could be hunted in Algeria. 
However, these hunters having the kindly appear- 
ance of retired merchants, and this fashion of hunt- 
ing lions with dogs and gamebags seeming so 
patriarchal, Tartarin, a good deal puzzled, thought 
proper to question one of the gentlemen. 

“ Et autrement, comrade, a good hunt?” 

“ Not bad,” replied the other, gazing with a 
scared eye at the very considerable armament of 
the warrior of Tarascon. 

“ You killed?” 

“ Why, yes . . . not bad . . . look there ; ” and the 
hunter tapped his gamebag, bulging with rabbits 
and woodcock. 

“What! your gamebag? . . But surely you 
can’t put them in a gamebag?” 

“ Where else do you expect me to put them? ” 

“ But if so, then they — they must be little 
ones.” 

“ Little and big,” replied the hunter; and as he 
was in a hurry to get home, he rejoined his com- 
rades with great strides. 


62 Tartarin of Taras con. 

The intrepid Tartarin stood stock-still in the 
middle of the highroad. . . Then, after a mo- 
ment’s reflection, “ Pooh ! ” he said to himself, 
“ they are only hoaxing. . . They have n’t killed 
anything at all.” And he continued his way. 

Already the houses were becoming fewer ; pas- 
sengers also. Night was falling; objects grew 
dim. Tartarin of Tarascon walked on for an- 
other half-hour. Then he stopped. . . It was 
dark night now. Night without a moon, though 
studded with stars. No one was on the road. . . 
Nevertheless, the hero reflected that lions were 
not stage-coaches, and did not always follow the 
highroad. Consequently he flung himself across 
country. . . At every step ditches, brambles, 
briers. No matter! on he went. . . Then, all of 
a sudden, halt! “There’s lion in the air about 
here,” thought the worthy man; and he sniffed 
strongly to right and left. 


Pan! Pan! 


63 


V. 

Pan / Pan / 

’T WAS a great wild desert, all bristling with 
fantastic plants, those eastern plants which look 
like savage beasts. Beneath the tempered light 
of stars their lengthened shadows crossed the 
ground in all directions. To right lay the heavy 
and confused mass of a mountain, — Atlas per- 
haps ! . . To left, the invisible sea, rolling, growl- 
ing . . . the very spot to tempt wild beasts. . . 

One gun laid out before him, the other in his 
hands, Tartarin of Tarascon knelt, one knee to 
earth, and waited. . . He waited an hour, two hours 
. . . Nothing ! . . Then he remembered that in the 
books no great lion-hunters ever went out with- 
out a little kid, which they fastened a few steps in 
front of them and forced to cry by pulling its paw 
with twine. Not having a kid the Tarasconese 
bethought him of trying an imitation, and he 
began to bleat in a tremulous voice : “ Mea ! 
Mea ! . ” 

At first very softly, because at the bottom of his 
soul he was half afraid that the lion might hear 
him . . . then, as no lion came, he bleated louder : 
“ Mea ! . . Mea ! . .” Still nothing ! . . Impatiently 
he tried again, louder, and over and over again : 


6 4 Tartarin of Taras con. 

“ Mea ! . . Mea ! . . Mea ! . .” with such force that 
the kid in the end appeared to be an ox. . . 

Ai 1 . of a sudden, a few steps in front of him, 
something black and gigantic appeared. He 
stopped bleating. . . The thing stooped, smelt 
the earth, bounded, rolled over, sprang away, 
then returned and stopped short . . . ’t was the 
lion, not a doubt of it ! . . His four short legs 
were now quite visible, also his formidable shoul- 
ders and two eyes, two great eyes shining out of 
the darkness. . . Take aim ! pan ! pan ! . . ’T was 
done. Then, instantly, one bound backward, with 
the hunting-knife ready. 

To Tartarin’s shot a terrible howl responded. 

“He’s got it!” cried the intrepid hunter, and 
planting himself squarely on his two stout legs he 
prepared to receive the beast. But the beast get- 
ting more than it reckoned, fled at a triple gal- 
lop, roaring. . . Tartarin, however, did not stir. 
He awaited the female . . . just as the books say. 

Unhappily the female did not come. At the 
end of two or three hours of expectation Tartarin 
grew weary. The ground was damp ; the night 
grew cold ; the sea-breeze stung him. 

“ Suppose I take a nap while awaiting the 
dawn?” thought he; and then, in order to avoid 
rheumatism, he had recourse to the shelter-tent. . . 
But the devil was in it ! that shelter-tent was con- 
structed on a system so ingenious, so very in- 
genious, that he could not succeed in opening it. 

In vain he wrestled and sweated for an hour; 
that damned tent would not open. . . I have 


Pan ! Pan ! 


65 

known umbrellas amuse themselves in torrential 
rains by playing just such tricks. . . Weary of the 
struggle Tartarin flung that utensil to earth and 
lay upon it swearing, like the true Provencal that 
he was. . . 

“ Ta, ta , ra> ta Tar at a ! . .” 

“What’s that?” cried Tartarin, waking with a 
start. 

It was the bugles of the chasseurs d'Afrique 
sounding reveillee in the barracks at Mustapha. . . 
The lion-killer, stupefied, rubbed his eyes. . . He 
had thought himself in the middle of the desert ! . . 
Do you know where he was? In a bed of arti- 
chokes, between a patch of cabbage and a patch 
of beetroots. 

His Sahara had vegetables. . . Close to him, on 
the pretty green slope of Upper Mustapha, the 
pure white Algerine villas were shining in the 
glow of the rising sun; you might have thought 
yourself in the environs of Marseilles, amid the 
bastidcs and the bastidons. 

The commonplace, kitchen-garden physiognomy 
of the landscape about him amazed the poor man 
and put him out of temper. 

“These people are crazy,” he said to himself, 
“ to plant artichokes close to lions ... for ... I 
certainly did not dream it . . . lions come here. . . 
And here’s the proof. . .” 

The proof — ’twas the blood-stains left by the 
beast as it fled away. Following this bloody trail, 
his eye on the watch, his revolver in his fist, the 
valiant Tarasconese came, from artichoke to arti- 
S 


66 Tartarin of Tar as con. 

choke, to a little field of oats. . . On the trampled 
stalks, in a pool of blood, lay upon its flank with a 
wound in its head, a . . . Guess what ! 

“A lion, parbleiL !” 

No! a jackass; one of those tiny little donkeys 
so common in Algiers, which go by the name over 
there of bourriquots . 


Arrival of the Female . 


67 


VI. 

Arrival of the female. Terrible combat. 

The Rendezvous of the “ Lapins 

The first feeling of Tartarin at the sight of his 
unlucky victim was one of vexation. There is such 
a difference between a lion and a jackass ! . . His 
second emotion was altogether pity. The poor 
donkey was so pretty, he looked so good ! The 
skin of his flanks, still warm, was crinkling like a 
wave. Tartarin knelt down, and with the end of 
his Algerine waistband he tried to stanch the 
blood of the unfortunate animal; and the sight of 
this great man succouring the little jackass was 
really the most touching thing you can imagine. 

At the silken contact of the waistbelt, the donkey, 
which had still about a farthing’s worth of life left 
in him, opened a great gray eye and shook his 
long ears once or twice, as if to say : “ Thank you ! 
thank you ! . .” Then a last convulsion stirred him 
from head to tail and he moved no more. 

“ Noiraud ! Noiraud ! ” suddenly cried a voice 
that was choked with anxiety. At the same 
moment the bushes in a neighbouring coppice 
rustled. . . Tartarin had scarcely time to rise and 
put himself on guard. . . *T was the female ! 

She came, terrible and bellowing, under the 
form of an old Alsatian woman in a turban, armed 



68 Tartarin of Tar as con. 

with a great red umbrella, and demanding back 
her donkey from the echoes of Algeria. Certainly 
it would have been better for Tartarin to have had 
to do with a lioness in her fury than with this ma- 
lignant old woman. Vainly did the poor man try 
to make her understand the thing just as it hap- 
pened. When he told her that he had taken Noi- 
raud for a lion the old woman thought he was 
laughing at her, and emitting an energetic “ Tar - 
teifle ! ” she fell upon our hero with the red um- 
brella. Tartarin, a little confused, defended him- 
self as best he could, warded her blows with his 
carbine, puffed, sweated, and bounded around, 
crying out: “ But, madame ! . . but, madame. . . ” 

Va te pi'omener ! Madame was deaf, and proved 
it. 

Happily, a third person appeared upon the 
battle-field. This was the husband of the old 
woman, Alsatian himself, a tavern-keeper, and a 
very good reckoner besides. When he saw with 
whom he had to do, and that the murderer asked 
no better than to pay the value of the victim, he 
disarmed his spouse and they came to terms. 

Tartarin paid two hundred francs; the donkey 
was worth ten. That is the price current of bour- 
riquots in the Arabian markets. Then they buried 
poor Noiraud at the roots of a fig-tree, and the 
Alsatian, in high good humour at seeing the colour 
of Tarasconese money, invited the hero to break a 
crust at his tavern, which was only a few steps dis- 
tant, at the side of the highway. 

Algerine huntsmen were in the habit of dining 


Arrival of the Female . 69 

there every Sunday, for the plain was brimful of 
game, and for a couple of leagues around the town 
there was no better place for rabbits. 

“And lions?” asked Tartarin. 

The Alsatian looked at him, much surprised. 
“ Lions? ” he said. 

“ Yes . . . lions . . . don’t you see them some- 
times?” said poor Tartarin, with rather less assur- 
ance. 

The tavern-keeper burst out laughing. 

“ Ha ! good ! no, thank you. . . Lions ! . . what 
should we do with lions?” 

“Are there no lions in Algeria?” 

“Faith! I never saw any . . . And yet I have 
lived over twenty years in the province ; though I 
think I have heard tell . . . seems to me it was in 
the newspaper. . . But that ’s ever so far off, down 
there, in Southern Africa. . .” 

At this moment they reached the tavern. A 
suburban tavern, such as we see at Vanves or 
Pantin, with a withered bough above the door, 
billiard-cues painted on the walls, and this inoffen- 
sive sign: — 

THE RENDEZ-VOUS OF LAPINS. 

The Rendez-vous of Lapins ! . . O Bravida ! 
What recollections ! 


7 ° 


Tartarin of Taras con. 


VII. 

History of an omnibus , tf/ - # Moorish dame , 
a?id of a chaplet of jasmine flowers . 

This first adventure would have been enough to 
discourage many persons; but men of Tartarin’s 
stamp do not allow themselves to be so easily 
beaten back. 

“The lions are in the South,” thought he; 
“ very good ! then to the South I will go.” 

And as soon as he had swallowed his last mouth- 
ful he rose, thanked his host, embraced the old 
woman without rancour, shed a last tear to the 
luckless Noiraud, and started as fast as possible 
for Algiers with the firm intention of buckling his 
trunks and departing that very same day for the 
South. 

Unfortunately, the highroad to Mustapha ap- 
peared to have lengthened since the previous 
evening ; there was such a sun, and such dust ! 
the shelter- tent was so heavy ! . . Tartarin felt he 
had not the courage to return to the town on foot, 
so he made a sign to the first omnibus that passed 
him and got into it. . . 

Ah ! poor Tartarin of Tarascon ! how much 
better for his name, for his fame, had he not 
entered that fatal and lengthy vehicle, but continued 


History of an Omnibus . 71 

his pedestrian way, at the risk of falling asphyx- 
iated under the weight of the atmosphere, the 
shelter-tent, and those ponderous double-barrelled 
rifled guns. . . 

Tartarin having got in, the omnibus was full. 
At the farther end was a vicar of the Church with 
his nose in his breviary, and a big black beard. 
Opposite sat a young Moorish merchant, smoking 
thick cigarettes. Next, a Maltese sailor and four 
or five Moorish ladies, masked and swathed in 
white linen, of whom nothing could be seen but 
their eyes. These ladies had just been performing 
their devotions in the cemetery of Abd-el-Kader ; 
but that visit of mourning did not seem to have 
saddened them. They were heard to laugh and 
chatter to one another behind their masks, all the 
while sucking sugar-plums. 

Tartarin perceived that they looked at him 
much. One especially, the one who was seated in 
front of him, planted her eyes upon his and never 
withdrew them the whole way. Though the lady 
was veiled, the vivacity of that great black eye, 
lengthened by khol, a delicate, delightful wrist 
laden with bracelets seen from time to time amid 
the veils, all — even to the sound of her voice, the 
graceful, almost infantine motions of her head — 
all told that behind those veils was something 
young, lovely, adorable. . . The unhappy Tartarin 
did not know where to hide himself. The mute 
caress of those beauteous eyes of Orient troubled 
him, agitated him, made him feel like dying; he 
was hot, he was cold. . . 


j?. Tartarin of Torascon . 

To complete his emotion, the lady’s slipper took 
part in the affair. Over his heavy hunting-boots 
he felt it gliding, that dainty slipper, gliding and 
frisking like a little red mouse. . . What must he 
do ? Respond of course to that look, to that pres- 
sure ! Yes, but the consequences... A love-in- 
trigue in Orient ! why, it is something terrifying ! . . 
And the brave Tarasconese, with his romantic, 
Southern imagination, saw himself falling into the 
hands of eunuchs, decapitated, or, worse still, sown 
up in a leathern sack and rolling in the sea, his 
head beside him. Such thoughts chilled him a 
good deal. Meanwhile the little slipper continued 
its play, and the two eyes opposite opened wide 
upon him like black velvet flowers, as if to say: 

“ Gather us ! . . ” 

The omnibus stopped. They were now in the 
Theatre square, at the entrance of the rue Bab- 
Azoun. One by one, impeded by their full trou- 
sers and gathering their veils around them with 
native grace, the Moorish ladies descended from 
the omnibus. Tartarin’s opposite neighbour rose 
last, and in rising her face came so near to that of 
the hero that he breathed her breath, a veritable 
bouquet of youth and jasmine, musk and pastry. 

The Tarasconese hero could not resist. Intoxi- 
cated with love and ready for all, he sprang out 
after the Moorish lady. . . At the rattle of his 
caparisons she turned her head, put a finger on 
her mask as if to say “ hush ! ” and quickly, with 
the other hand, tossed him a little perfumed chap- 
let of jasmine flowers. Tartarin of Tarascon 


History of an Omnibus . 73 

stooped to pick it up ; but as our hero was rather 
ponderous and much weighted down with his 
armour, the operation was long. 

When he rose, the jasmine chaplet on his heart, 
the Moorish lady had disappeared. 


74 


Tartarin of Tarascon. 



Lions of Atlas, sleep in peace / 

Lions of Atlas, sleep ! Sleep tranquilly in the 
depths of your lairs among the aloes and the 
cactuses. . . For some days yet you will not be 
massacred by Tartarin of Tarascon. At the pres- 
ent moment his paraphernalia of war — chests of 
weapons, pharmacy, shelter-tent and aliments — 
repose unpacked in a corner of room No. 3 6, 
Hotel de l’Europe. 

Sleep, ye grand ruddy lions ! sleep without fear. 
The hero seeks his Moorish lady. Ever since that 
trip in the omnibus the hapless man perpetually 
feels upon his foot, the gigantic foot of a trapper, 
the lively friskings of a little red mouse; and the 
sea-breeze, kissing his lips, is ever perfumed — do 
what he will — with an amorous odour of anise- 
seed and pastry. 

He wants his Maugrabine ! 

But to get her is not so easy! To find in a 
city of a hundred thousand souls a person of whom 
one knows nothing but her breath, her slippers, 
and her eyes! None but a Tarasconese, smitten 
by love, would be capable of attempting such an 
enterprise. 


Lions of Atlas , Sleep in Peace! 75 

The terrible point was that all Moorish women 
look alike behind those great veils of theirs; more- 
over, these ladies seldom go out, and if you want 
to see them you must go to the upper town, the 
Arab town, the town of the Tenrs. 

A regular cut-throat place that upper town. 
Little narrow black alleys clambering upward on 
steps between two rows of mysterious houses, 
whose overhanging roofs, meeting together, form 
a tunnel. Low doors, small windows, silent, sad, 
and barred. And then, to right and left a mass of 
booths, very dark, where savage Tenrs with pirate 
heads — whites of eyes and shining teeth — smoke 
their long pipes and talk in low voices to one an- 
other as if concerting evil deeds. 

To say that our Tartarin threaded this formi- 
dable city without emotion would be false. He was, 
on the contrary, much agitated, and along these 
gloomy alleys, where his big stomach filled all the 
space, the worthy man advanced with great pre- 
caution, watchful eyes, and finger on the trigger of 
his revolver. Precisely as he did at Tarascon on 
his way to the club. At every turn he expected 
to receive upon his back an avalanche of eunuchs 
and janissaries ; but the desire to see once more his 
Moorish lady gave him audacity and the strength 
of a giant. 

For eight consecutive days the intrepid Tartarin 
never left that upper town. Sometimes standing 
sentinel in front of the Moorish baths, awaiting 
the hour when the ladies issued in clusters, shiver- 
ing and fragrant with the bath; sometimes crouch- 


76 Tartarin of Tarascon . 

ing at the door of the mosques, sweating and 
puffing in the effort to get off his stout boots be- 
fore entering the sanctuary. . . 

Often, at nightfall, when returning broken- 
hearted at making no discovery in bath or mosque, 
the hero, passing beside those Moorish houses, 
could hear monotonous chants, the stifled tones of 
a guitar, the roll of a tambourine, the silvery laugh 
of women, that made his heart beat. 

“ She may be there ! ” he said to himself. 

Then, if the street was deserted, he approached 
the house, raised the heavy knocker of the postern 
door, and gave a timid rap. . . Instantly the songs, 
the laughter ceased. Behind the wall nothing was 
heard but vague little whisperings as in a sleeping 
dove-cote. 

“ Keep firm ! ” thought the hero. “ Something 
will happen to me ! ” 

That which usually happened to him was a pot- 
ful of cold water on his head, or a handful of 
orange-peel and Barbary figs. . . Never anything 
worse. . . 

Lions of Atlas, sleep in peace ! 


Prince Gregory of Montenegro . 


IX. 


Prince Gregory of Montenegro . 

For two long weeks the unfortunate Tartarin 
searched for his Moorish lady, and, in all proba- 
bility, he would be searching for her still if the 
Providence of lovers had not come to his assistance 
in the shape of a nobleman of Montenegro. In 
this wise : — 

Every Saturday night during the winter the 
great theatre of Algiers gives its masked ball, 
neither more nor less like the Opera. It is, in 
fact, the eternal and insipid masked ball of the 
provinces. In the theatre itself, poor company ; a 
few stray waifs from Bullier or the Casino, foolish 
virgins following the army, ragged revellers, 
debardeurs the worse for wear, and five or six 
little Mahonese washerwomen on their promotion, 
but still retaining from their days of virtue a flavour 
of garlic and saffron sauces. . . The real coup 
d'oeil is not there. It is in the foyer, transformed 
for this occasion into a gambling-room. . . A 
nervous, variegated crowd jostle around those long 
green tables: turcos on furlough are staking in 
coppers their advanced pay, Moorish merchants 
from the upper town, negroes, Maltese, settlers 
from the interior coming forty leagues to risk upon 


78 Tartarin of Taras con. 

an ace the price of a cart or a couple of oxen . . . 
all quivering, pale, with clenched teeth and that 
singular glance of the gambler, dim, sidelong, and 
become a squint by dint of fixing the eyes so long 
on the same card. 

Farther on, are tribes of Algerine Jews discuss- 
ing the game en famille. The men are in Eastern 
costume hideously accompanied with blue stock- 
ings and velvet caps. The women, puffy and pale, 
stand rigidly erect in their tight gold stomachers. 
Grouped around the tables the whole tribe bawl, 
lay their heads together, count upon their 
fingers, and stake little. Now and then, but 
rarely, and after long confabulation, some old 
patriarch with a Father-Eternal beard detaches 
himself from the group and goes to the table to 
risk the family stake. . . Then, as long as that 
game lasts, a scintillation of Hebraic eyes falls 
upon the table, terrible, black-magnet eyes, which 
make those bits of gold on the green cloth quiver, 
and end by gently drawing them in as if by a 
thread. . . 

Then quarrels, battles, oaths of all nations, 
savage cries in every tongue, knives unsheathed, 
police arriving, money lost. . . 

'T was into the midst of such saturnalia that our 
great Tartarin wandered one evening in search of 
forgetfulness and peace of mind. 

The hero was walking alone through the crowd, 
thinking of his Moorish flame, when suddenly, at a 
gambling-table, above the clink of gold, two irri- 
tated voices rose : — 


Prince Gregory of Montenegro . 79 

“ I tell you I ’m lacking twenty francs, — 
M’sieu ! . 

“ M’sieu ! . 

“Well, what? . . M’sieu ! ” 

“ Know to whom you speak, M’sieu ! 99 

“ That’s what I wish to know, M’sieu ! 99 

“ I am Prince Gregory of Montenegro, 
M’sieu ! . 

At that name Tartarin, quite excited, pushed 
through the crowd and put himself in the front 
rank proud and happy at finding his prince, that 
polite Montenegrin prince whose acquaintance he 
had begun to make on the packet-boat. . . 

Unfortunately, the title of Highness, so dazzling 
to our worthy Tarasconese, produced not the 
slightest impression on the cavalry officer with 
whom the prince was having his skirmish. 

“ What of that? . sneered the military gentle- 
man. “ Gregory of Montenegro ” (talking to the 
gallery), — “does any one know him? . . No 
one ! . 

Tartarin, very indignant, made one step forward. 

“ Pardon me. . . I know the preince ,” he said in a 
very firm voice and his finest Tarasconese accent. 

The cavalry officer looked him full in the face 
for a moment and then said, shrugging his 
shoulders : — 

“Well, well, all right. . . Share that twenty 
francs between you, and we ’ll say no more about 
it.” 

With that he turned his back upon them and 
was lost in the crowd. 


So Tartarin of Tarascon . 

The fiery Tartarin attempted to rush after him 
but the prince prevented. 

“ Let him alone ... it is my affair.” 

And taking our hero by the arm he led him 
rapidly from the foyer. 

As soon as they reached the open street Prince 
Gregory of Montenegro took off his hat, offered 
his hand to his defender, and, vaguely recalling his 
name, began in a vibrant voice : — 

“ Monsieur Barbarin . . .” 

“Tartarin,” whispered the other, timidly. 

“Tartarin, Barbarin, no matter which! . . Be- 
tween us two for life, or death, henceforth ! ” 

And the noble Montenegrin shook his hand with 
savage energy. You can imagine Tartarin’s pride. 

“ PreYnce ! . . Preface ! ” he repeated deliriously. 

A quarter of an hour later the two gentle- 
men were installed at the Cafe des Platanes, an 
agreeable night resort with terraces overhang- 
ing the sea, and there, before a strong Russian 
salad washed down with Crescia, they renewed 
acquaintance. 

You can imagine nothing more seductive than 
this Montenegrin prince. Thin, slender, hair curl- 
ing and crimped with irons, face shaved as if with 
a pumice-stone, starred with mysterious orders, 
his eyes shrewd, his gesture coaxing, his accent 
vaguely Italian (which gave him a sham air of 
Mazarin without a moustache) ; well versed, more- 
over, in the Latin languages and quoting on all 
occasions Tacitus, Horace, and the Commentaries. 
Such was Gregory, Prince of Montenegro. 


Prince Gregory of Montenegro . 81 

Of an old hereditary race, his brothers, it ap- 
peared, had banished him when ten years of age 
on account of his liberal opinions, and since then 
he had roamed the world, for his education and 
pleasure, as a philosophical royalty. . . Curious 
coincidence ! the prince had spent three years in 
Tarascon, and when Tartarin expressed surprise 
at never having met him at the club or on the 
Esplanade, “ I went out but little,” his Highness 
said evasively. And Tartarin was discreetly afraid 
to question him further. All great existences have 
mysterious sides ! . . 

But, at any rate, a very good prince this Gregory 
of Montenegro. While sipping the rosy wine of 
Crescia, he listened patiently to Tartarin’s tale of 
his Moorish love , he even promised, knowing all 
those ladies, to find her promptly. 

They drank deep and long. They toasted “ The 
ladies of Algiers ! ” and “ Montenegro free ! ” 

Outside, beneath the terrace, rolled the sea, and 
the waves in the darkness beat the shore with the 
sound of wet sheets flapping. The air was warm, 
the heavens filled with stars, the nightingales were 
singing in the plane-trees. 

Jt was Tartarin who paid the bill. 


6 


82 


Tartarin of Taras con. 



X. 

Tell me the name of thy father , and I will tell 
thee the name of this flower. 

There is no one who can land his fish so easily 
as a Montenegrin prince. 

On the morrow of this evening at the Cafe des 
Platanes, at dawn of day, Prince Gregory appeared 
in Tartarin’s chamber. 

‘‘Quick! dress yourself quickly ! . . Your Moor- 
ish lady is found. . . Her name is Ba'fa. . . Twenty 
years old, pretty as heart could wish, and already 
a widow. . .” 

“ Widow ! . . what luck ! ” joyfully exclaimed 
Tartarin, who mistrusted the husbands of Orient. 

“Yes, but closely watched by a brother.” 

“ Ah ! the deuce ! . 

“A savage Moor who peddles pipes in the 
Orleans bazaar. . 

Silence. 

“ Pooh ! ” resumed the prince, “ you are not the 
man to be frightened at so little. Besides, we can 
probably get round that pirate by buying his 
pipes. . . Come, make haste, dress yourself. . . 
Lucky dog ! ” 

Pale, agitated, his heart full of love, Tartarin 
sprang from the bed, and hastily buttoning his 
vast flannel drawers, — 


Tell Me the Name of Thy Father, 83 

“What must I do? ” he said. 

“ Simply write to the lady and ask for a 
rendezvous.” 

“Then she knows French?” exclaimed the 
artless Tartarin, with a look of disappointment, for 
he dreamed of his Orient unmixed. 

“ Not one word of it,” replied the prince, imper- 
turbably. . . “ But you will dictate the letter to 

me and I shall translate it.” 

“ Oh, prince, what goodness ! ” 

And Tartarin began to walk up and down his 
room with long strides, silent and collecting his 
thoughts. 

You can well suppose that letters are not written 
to a Moorish lady of Algiers as they are to a 
grisette of Beaucaire. Most fortunately our hero 
possessed the fruits of a varied reading which 
enabled him, by amalgamating the Apache rhetoric 
of Gustave Aimard's Indians with Lamartine’s 
“ Voyage en Orient ” and a few reminiscences of 
the “ Song of Songs,” to compose the most truly 
oriental letter that was ever written. It began 
with : — 


" Like the ostrich on the sands of the desert — ** 
and it ended with : — 

“ Tell me the name of thy father, and I will tell thee the name 
of this flower.” 

To this missive, the romantic Tartarin would 
fain have added a bouquet of flowers emblematical, 
after the fashion of the East; but Prince Gregory 


84 Tartarin of Tarascon . 

thought it was better to buy pipes of the brother, 
which might soften the savage temper of that 
gentleman, and would certainly give pleasure to 
the lady, who smoked a great deal. 

“ Let us go at once and buy the pipes,” cried 
Tartarin, full of ardour. 

“ No ! . . no ! . . Let me go alone. I can buy 
them cheaper. . .” 

“What! will you really? . . Oh, prince . . . 
prince. . .” And the worthy man, quite con- 
fused, held out his purse to the obliging Monte- 
negrin, urging him to spare nothing to please 
the lady. 

Unfortunately the affair — though well started — 
did not advance as rapidly as might have been 
expected. Deeply touched, it appeared, by Tar- 
tarin’s eloquence and already three-parts won, the 
Moorish lady herself desired to receive him; but 
the brother had scruples, and in order to allay 
them it was necessary to buy dozens, in fact many 
gross, even cargoes of pipes. . . 

“ What the devil can Baia do with all those 
pipes?” Tartarin sometimes asked himself — but 
he paid all the same and never haggled. 

At last, after purchasing mountains of pipes 
and shedding on his love vast floods of Oriental 
poesy, a rendezvous was obtained. 

I need not tell you with what a beating heart 
the Tarasconese hero prepared himself; with 
what care he trimmed and glossed and perfumed 
that harsh beard of his ; not forgetting — for one 
should foresee everything — not forgetting to slip 


Tell Me the Name of Thy Father . 85 

into his pocket a knuckle-duster with spikes and 
two or three revolvers. • 

The prince, always obliging, came to the first 
rendezvous in the quality of interpreter. The 
lady lived at the top of the town. Before her 
door a young Moor some thirteen or fourteen 
years of age was smoking cigarettes. This was 
the famous Ali, the brother in question. On 
seeing the arrival of the visitors he gave two raps 
on the postern door and retired discreetly. 

The door was opened. A negress appeared, 
who, without uttering a single word, conducted 
the two gentlemen across a narrow courtyard to a 
cool little chamber where the lady awaited them, 
half rising on her elbow from a low bed. . . At first 
sight, she seemed to Tartarin much shorter and 
stouter than the lady of the omnibus. . . Was it 
she, after all? . . But this suspicion only crossed 
the hero’s brain like a flash. 

The lady was very pretty, lying thus with bare 
feet ; her plump little fingers loaded with rings 
were rosy and so delicate ; and beneath her corse- 
let of cloth of gold, beneath the folds of her 
flowery robe, it was easy to divine a charming per- 
son, rather portly, enticing to the last degree, and 
rounded in all its angles. . . The amber mouth- 
piece of a narghile was at her lips, and the glow of 
its golden smoke enveloped her. 

As he entered, the hero laid one hand upon his 
heart and bowed, as Moorishly as possible, rolling 
his big eyes passionately. . . Bai'a looked at him a 
moment without saying a word ; then, letting fall 


86 Tartarin of Taras con. 

the amber mouthpiece, she threw herself back- 
ward and hid her head in her hands, leaving 
nothing visible but her white throat, which a frantic 
laugh caused to heave and dance like a bag of 
pearls. 


Sidi Tart'ri ben Tart'ri . 


37 



XI. 

Sidi Tart'ri ben Tart'ri . 

If you should enter, of an evening, any one of 
the Algerine cafes in the upper town you would 
hear Moors talking, even now, with many winks 
and laughs, of a certain Sidi Tart’ri ben Tart’ri, an 
amiable and rich European, who — it was a good 
many years ago — lived in the upper quarters of 
the town with a little lady of the population named 
Ba'fa. 

The Sidi Tart’ri in question, who has left such 
gay memories around the Kasbah, is no other, as 
the reader has divined, than our Tartarin. . . 

But what of it? We find the like in the lives 
of saints and heroes, — hours of blindness, confu- 
sion, weakness. The illustrious Tarasconese was 
not more exempt than others, and that is why, — 
for the space of two months, — oblivious of lions 
and of glory, he became intoxicated with oriental 
love and slept, like Hannibal at Capua, in the soft 
elysium of Algiers the White. 

The worthy man had hired in the heart of the 
Arab town a pretty little native house, with an 
interior courtyard, banana-trees, fountains, and 
cool galleries. He lived there, far from tongues, 
with his Moorish lady, himself a Moor from head 


88 Tartarm of Tarascon . 

to foot, puffing all day long at his narghile and 
eating sweetmeats flavoured with musk. 

Stretched upon a divan before him, Ba'ia, guitar 
in hand, sang monotonous airs through her nose, 
or, the better to amuse her lord and master, danced 
the stomach-dance, holding in her hand a little 
mirror in which she smiled at her ivory teeth and 
made various grimaces. 

As the lady did not know one word of French, 
nor Tartarin a word of Arabic, the conversation 
was apt to languish, and the garrulous Tarasconese 
had time to do penance for the intemperate 
language of which he was often guilty in Bou- 
quet’s pharmacy and the shop of the gunsmith 
Costecalde. 

But such repentance was not without its charm ; 
’t was a species of voluptuous spleen to say nothing 
day by day and listen to the gurgle of the narghile, 
the tinkle of the guitar, and the gentle drip of the 
fountain on the mosaics of the courtyard. 

The narghile, the bath, and love filled all his 
life. He went out seldom. Sometimes Sidi Tart’ri, 
mounted on a mule, his lady behind him, would 
go to eat pomegranates in a little garden he had 
purchased in the environs. . . But never, oh, never, 
would he descend into the European city. With 
its drunken Zouaves, its alcazars crammed with 
officers, and its everlasting jangle of sabres dragging 
along the arcades, the Algiers that lay below was 
to him as intolerable and ugly as a Western guard- 
house. 

In short, the Tarasconese was happy. Tartarin- 


Sidi Tcirt'ri ben Tart'ru 89 

Sancho, always very greedy after Turkish confec- 
tionery, declared himself wholly satisfied with his 
new existence. . . Tartarin-Quixote did certainly, 
now and then, feel some trifling remorse when he 
thought of Tarascon and all his fine promises; but 
it did not last. To chase away such sad ideas 
nothing was needed but a glance from Bai'a, and a 
spoonful of those diabolical sweetmeats, odorif- 
erous and muddling as Circe’s drinks. 

In the evenings Prince Gregory would come to 
talk of his free Montenegro. . . Unwearied in 
kindness, this amiable noble performed in Sidi 
Tart’ri’s house the functions of interpreter, and even 
those of steward ; and all for nothing! just for the 
pleasure of it. . . Excepting the prince, Tartarin 
received none but Teurs. Those pirates with 
savage heads, who formerly frightened him in the 
depths of their dark booths, proved to be, when 
he knew them, harmless shop-keepers, embroid- 
erers, sellers of spices, turners of pipe-stems, all 
most worthy persons, humble, shrewd, discreet, 
and strong at cards. Four or five times a week 
these gentry would come and spend the evening 
with Sidi Tart’ri, win his money, eat his sweet- 
meats, and, on the stroke of ten, retire discreetly, 
giving thanks to the Prophet. 

After their departure, Sidi Tart’ri and his faithful 
spouse ended the evening on their terrace, a broad 
white terrace that was really the roof of the house 
and commanded the whole town. All around them 
hundreds of other white terraces, tranquil in the 
moonlight, sloped downward, in echelon, to the 


90 Tartarin of Tarascon . 

shore, the tinkle of their guitars rising upward, 
borne by the breeze. 

Suddenly, like a bouquet of stars, a grand, 
clear melody diffused itself in ether, and on the 
minaret of a neighbouring mosque stood a stately 
muezzin, his white form outlined on the deep, dark 
blue of the night as he chanted the glory of Allah 
in a marvellous voice that filled the horizon. 

Instantly Bai'a let fall her guitar, and her great 
eyes, turned to the muezzin, seemed to drink in his 
prayer with rapture. As long as the chant lasted, 
she stood there quivering, in ecstasy, like an East- 
ern Saint Teresa. . . Tartarin, all emotion, looked 
at her as she prayed, and thought to himself that it 
must be a fine and strong religion that could cause 
such ecstasies of faith as that. 

Tarascon ! veil thy face ! thy Tartarin is think- 
ing to make himself a renegade. 


They Write to Us from Taras con. 91 



XII. 

They write to us from Tarascon. 

On a beautiful afternoon of azure skies and balmy 
breezes, Sidi Tart’ri, astride of his mule, was re- 
turning all alone from his little garden. . . With 
his legs parted by large bags of matweed big with 
lemons and watermelons, his body rocking to the 
sound of his own spurs and yielding itself wholly 
to the swaying of the mule, the worthy man was 
making his way through a lovely landscape, both 
hands crossed on his stomach, and he himself 
three-fourths asleep from warmth and comfort. 

All of a sudden, as he entered the town, a for- 
midable call awoke him. 

“Hey! who’s this? Why, sure, ’t is Monsieur 
Tartarin ! ” 

At the name of Tartarin, at that joyous Southern 
accent, th£ Tarasconese raised his head and saw, 
within two steps of him, the brave tanned face of 
Maitre Barbassou, captain of the “ Zouave,” who 
was drinking absinthe as he smoked his pipe before 
the door of a little caf<£. 

“ Hey ! adieu, Barbassou,” cried Tartarin, stop- 
ping his mule. 

Instead of replying, Barbassou gazed at the rider 
for a moment with his eyes wide open ; then off 


92 Tartarin of Tar as con. 

he went into a laugh, and such a laugh ! so that 
Sidi Tart’ri sat confused behind his watermelons. 

“ Hey ! a turban ! my poor Monsieur Tartarin ! . . 
Then it is true what they say of you — that you 
have made yourself a Teur ? . . And that little 
Bai'a, does she still sing Marco la Belle ? ” 

“ Marco la Belle!” cried Tartarin, indignantly. 
“ I would have you know, captain, that the person 
of whom you speak is a virtuous Moorish lady who 
does not know one word of French.” 

“ BaTa ! not know one word of French? Where 
do you come from? . .” 

And the worthy captain began to laugh louder 
than ever. 

Then, seeing how the face of poor Sidi Tart’ri 
was lengthening, he checked himself. 

“ Perhaps, after all, she is not the same,” he 
said. “Let’s say I was mistaken. . . Only, don’t 
you see, Monsieur Tartarin, you would do well to 
distrust all Algerine Moorish ladies and all Mon- 
tenegrin princes ! . .” 

Tartarin rose in his stirrups, with his terrible 
grimace. 

“ The prince is my friend, captain.” 

“ Well, well, don’t get angry. . . Won’t you 
take an absinthe? No. Any message for home? . . 
Nothing . . . Well, then ! good-bye. . . Oh ! 
apropos, here ’s some good French tobacco, and if 
you would like a few pipes of it . . . take them ! 
take them! they’ll do you good... None of 
your cursed Oriental tobacco which fuddles one’s 
brain.” 


They Write to Us from Taras con, 93 

Thereupon the captain returned to his absinthe, 
and Tartarin, quite pensive, resumed his way home 
at a slow trot. Although his great soul refused 
to believe a word of them, Barbassou’s insinua- 
tions saddened him ; besides, those accents of 
home, those oaths — all, all awoke within him a 
vague remorse. 

Entering his house he found no one. Ba'fa was 
at the bath . . . the negress seemed to him ugly, 
the house dismal. . . A prey to indefinable mel- 
ancholy, he seated himself beside the fountain and 
filled a pipe with Barbassou’s tobacco. That 
tobacco was wrapped in a fragment of the “ Sema- 
phore.” As he unfolded it his eye lighted on the 
name of his native town : — - 

“ They write us from Tarascon : — 

“ ‘ The town is greatly stirred. Tartarin the lion-killer, 
who started to hunt the great felines of Africa, has sent no 
news of his doings for several months. . . What has 
become of our heroic compatriot? . . We scarcely dare 
to ask, knowing as we do that ardent spirit, its audacity, 
and its need of adventure. . . Has he, like others, been 
engulfed in the desert? or has he fallen within the mur- 
derous jaws of those monsters of Africa whose skins he 
promised to the municipality? . . Terrible uncertainty ! 
Nevertheless, certain negro merchants, coming to the fair 
at Beaucaire, assert that they met in the open desert a 
European whose description corresponds to his, and who 
was then on his way to Timbuctoo. . . May God pre- 
serve our Tartarin ! . .’ ” 

When he read those words the Tarasconese hero 
blushed, turned pale, and shuddered. All Taras- 


94 Tartarin of Tar as con. 

con appeared before him : the club, the cap- 
sportsmen, the green arm-chair at Costecalde’s, 
and — hovering, like a spread-eagle, above all else 
- — the solemn moustache of the brave Commander 
Bravida. 

Then, beholding himself as he was, basely squat- 
ting on his mat when they believed him in process 
of slaying wild beasts, Tartarin of Tarascon felt 
ashamed of himself, and wept. 

Suddenly the hero bounded up. 

“ To the lions ! to the lions ! ” he cried. 

And springing to the dusty hole where slept the 
shelter-tent, the pharmacy, the aliments, the case 
of weapons, he dragged them, each and all, to the 
middle of the courtyard. 

Tartarin-Sancho had expired. Tartarin-Quixote 
alone remained. 

There was only time to inspect his war material, 
to arm himself, accoutre himself, pull on his great 
boots, write a line to the prince and confide to him 
Bata, only time to slip a few blue notes (moistened 
with tears) into the same envelope, before our in- 
trepid hero was rolling in the diligence along the 
road to Blidah, leaving the stupefied negress in the 
house with the narghile, the turban, the slippers, in 
short, all the cast-off Mussulman apparel of Sidi 
Tart’ri, lying piteously about on the trefoiled pave- 
ment of the gallery. 


The Exiled Diligence . 


95 


THIRD EPISODE. 

AMONG THE LIONS. 

I. 

The exiled diligence. 

It was an old diligence of other days, lined, in 
ancient fashion, with coarse blue cloth now faded, 
and those enormous bunches of rough wool which 
end, after some hours’ travel, in blistering your 
back. . . Tartarin of Tarascon had one corner of 
the rotunda; there he installed himself as best he 
could, and while awaiting the musky emanations 
from the great felines of Africa, he was forced to 
content himself with that good old smell of a dili- 
gence, curiously compounded of a thousand smells, 
— men, horses, women, leather, victuals, and damp 
straw. 

A little of all was in this rotunda: A Trappist 
monk, Jew merchants, two cocottes rejoining their 
regiment (Third Hussars), a photographer from 
Orl6ansville. . . Rut, varied and charming as the 
company was, Tartarin was not inclined to talk ; he 
sat quite pensive, his arm through the strap, his 
carbines between his legs. . . This abrupt depart- 
ure, those black eyes of Bai'a, the terrible hunt he 


g6 Tartarin of Tar as con. 

was about to undertake, all these things harassed 
his brain ; not to mention the fact that this Euro- 
pean diligence with its good old patriarchal air 
recalled to him, vaguely, the Tarascon of his 
youth, his rambles in the suburbs, the nice little 
dinners on the banks of the Rhone; in short, a 
crowd of memories. . . 

Little by little darkness fell. The conductor 
lighted his lanterns. . . The diligence bumped 
and squeaked on its rusty springs; the horses 
trotted, the bells tinkled. . . Now and then, from 
beneath the tarpaulin of the imperial, came a ter- 
rible clatter of iron — this was the war-material. 

Tartarin of Tarascon, three parts dozing, looked 
for awhile at the other travellers comically shaken 
by jolts, and dancing before him like the shadows 
of a rushlight; then his eyes grew dim, his thought 
hazy, and he heard but vaguely the grinding sound 
of the axles and the lumbering complaints of the 
vehicle. 

Suddenly, a voice, the voice of an old witch, 
hoarse, cracked, broken, called the hero by name : 
“ Monsieur Tartarin ! Monsieur Tartarin ! ” 

“ Who calls? ” 

“’Tis I, Monsieur Tartarin; don’t you know' 
me? . . I’m the old diligence that used to ply — 
twenty years ago — between Nimes and Taras- 
con. . . How many times I ’ve carried you, you 
and your friends, when you went to hunt the caps 
about Joncquieres or Bellegarde ! . . I did n’t 
recognize you at first, on account of that Teur cap 
of yours and the flesh you have put on ; but as 


The Exiled Diligence. 97 

soon as you began to snore, faith ! I knew you 
then.” 

“Very good ! very good ! ” exclaimed Tartarin, 
hastily and rather vexed. 

Then, softening his tone : — 

“ But, my poor old soul, what are you doing 
here? ” 

“Ah! my good Monsieur Tartarin, I didn’t 
come of my own accord, I can assure you. . . As 
soon as that railway to Beaucaire was finished they 
said I was good for nothing and packed me off to 
Africa. . . And I ’m not the only one ! nearly all 
the diligences of France have been exiled like me. 
They thought us too reactionary ; so here we are, 
leading the life of galley-slaves. . . That ’s what 
you call in France Algerine railroads.” 

Here the old diligence heaved a heavy sigh ; 
then she resumed : — 

“ Ah ! Monsieur Tartarin, how I regret it, my 
beautiful Tarascon ! Those were the good days 
for me, the days of my youth ! ’T was fine to see 
me start of a morning, washed and shining, with 
my wheels all varnished fresh, my lanterns like 
two suns, and that tarpaulin overhead always 
rubbed up with oil ! Oh, yes ! ’t was fine when the 
postilion cracked his whip to the tune of: Laga- 
digadeoUy la Tarasque! la Tarasque! and the 
conductor, his percussion-gun slung across his 
shoulders, his embroidered cap on one ear, tossed 
that puppy of ours, always furious, on the top of 
the tarpaulin and sprang up himself, crying out: 

* Off with you ! off you go ! * And then, don’t you 
7 


98 Tartarin of Tarascon. 

remember how my four horses started to the sound 
of the bells, the barks, the bugles; the windows 
opened, and all Tarascon looked out with pride as 
the diligence rolled off along the royal highroad. 

“And what a fine road, Monsieur Tartarin! 
broad, well-kept, with its finger-posts and its 
heaps of stones for mending, all regularly 
placed; and right and left the pretty plains of 
olive-trees and vineyards. . . And those way- 
side inns every ten steps, and relays every five 
minutes ! . . And my travellers too, such nice 
people ! mayors and rectors going to Nimes to 
see their prefect or their bishop ; honest mercers 
returning from the Mazet; school-boys off for 
the holidays; peasants in their new embroidered 
blouses, shaved clean that very morning; and up 
there, on the imperial, you gentlemen, hunting 
caps, — always good-humoured, and singing, each 
of you his own , to the stars as you came back ! . 

“ Now it is another story. . . God knows the 
sort of people I have to cart ! — a lot of miscreants 
from I don’t know where, who fill me with ver- 
min ; negroes, bedouins, straggling soldiers, ad- 
venturers from all countries, settlers in rags who 
taint me with their pipes, and all of them talking a 
language that God the Father himself could n’t 
understand. . . And then, you see how I am 
treated! Never brushed, never washed. People 
complain of the cart-grease on my axles. . . In- 
stead of the four good quiet horses that I used to 
have, now it is those little Arab beasts with the 
devil in ’em ; fighting, biting, skipping along like 


The Exiled Diligence. 99 

goats and breaking my shafts with their heels. . . 
Ai'e ! . . ai'e ! . . there ! . . now it is beginning. . . 
And the roads ! Just here they are tolerable, be- 
cause it is near the government; but down there! 
why, there’s no road at all. You go as you can; 
over mountains and plains, among the dwarf palms 
and the mastic-trees. There ’s not a single fixed re- 
lay. You stop where the conductor fancies ; some- 
times at one farm-house, sometimes at another. 

“ There are times when that rascal makes me 
go two leagues out of my way that he may drink 
absinthe or champoreau with a friend. . . After 
which, whip up, postilion ! catch up lost time ! 
The sun bakes, the dust burns ! Whip up ! Bang 
against something and nearly over! Whip up! 
whip up ! Over rivers in flood, wet through, take 
cold, drown ! . . Whip ! whip ! whip ! . . Then at 
night, all dripping, (is that good for one of my 
age? and with rheumatism too?) I am forced to 
sleep out in the open air, in the courtyard of a 
caravansary, exposed to all winds. In the darkness 
the jackals and the hyenas come and smell me, and 
the rabble that fear the dew get into my compart- 
ments to keep themselves warm. . . That ’s the life 
I lead, my good Monsieur Tartarin, and I shall have 
to lead it till the day when, baked by the sun, rotted 
by the damp nights, I shall break down — not being 
able to do otherwise — in some angle of this vile 
road, and the Arabs will boil their kouss-kouss with 
the fragments of my old carcass. . .” 

“Blidah! Blidah ! ” called the conductor, open- 
ing the door. 


IOO 


Tartarin of Tar as con. 


II. 


Brief acquaintance with a little gentleman. 

VAGUELY, through windows dulled by steam, 
Tartarin of Tarascon saw the pretty square of a 
sub-prefecture, laid out regularly, surrounded by 
arcades and planted with orange-trees, in the 
centre of which were small leaden soldiers doing 
the exercise in the rosy mists of dawn. The 
cafes were taking down their shutters. In a cor- 
ner was the market, full of vegetables. . . T was 
charming but — the lion was not yet smelt. 

“The South!.. Farther South!" murmured 
the worthy Tartarin as he settled himself back in 
his corner. 

At this moment the door opened. A waft of 
fresh air came in, bringing on its wings a fra- 
grance of orange-blossoms and a very little gentle- 
man in a nut-brown overcoat, elderly, withered, 
wrinkled, starched, a face the size of my fist, a 
black silk cravat five inches high, a leather bag, an 
umbrella, — a perfect village notary. 

On catching sight of the hero’s war-material 
the little gentleman, who sat in front of him, seemed 
excessively surprised, and looked at Tartarin with 
a persistency that grew rather embarrassing. 


Acquaintance with a Gentleman . ioi 

The horses were taken out, others put in, and 
the diligence started. The little gentleman still 
looked at Tartarin, . . Finally the hero was 
nettled. 

“Does that surprise you?” he asked, looking 
the little gentleman full in the face. 

“ No. It inconveniences me,” replied the other, 
tranquilly. The truth is, that what with his shelter- 
tent, his revolver, his two guns, and his hunting- 
knife in its case — not to speak of his natural 
corpulence — Tartarin of Tarascon took a great 
deal of room. . . 

The answer of the little gentleman made him 
angry. 

“ Do you happen to suppose that I am going to 
hunt lions with your umbrella?” said the great 
man, proudly. 

The little gentleman looked at his umbrella, 
smiled softly, and said, with the same phlegm : 

“ Then, monsieur, you are. . ? ” 

“Tartarin of Tarascon, lion-slayer! ” 

In pronouncing those words the intrepid hero 
shook the tassel of his fez as if it were a mane. 

A moment of stupor occurred in the diligence. 

The monk crossed himself, the cocottes emitted 
little cries of alarm, and the Orleansville photogra- 
pher drew nearer to the lion-slayer already seeking 
the signal honour of taking his photograph. 

The little gentleman, however, was not discon- 
certed. 

“ Have you killed many lions, Monsieur Tar- 
tarin?” he asked very quietly. 


102 Tartarin of Tarascon . 

The hero received that query in his finest 
manner. 

“ Have I killed many, monsieur?.. I could 
wish you had as many hairs upon your head.” 

All the diligence began to laugh and to look at 
the three yellow hairs of Cadet-Roussel, which were 
all that bristled on the skull of the little gentleman. 

The Orleansville photographer now spoke up. 

“ Terrible profession yours, Monsieur Tarta- 
rin! . . You must spend dreadful moments 
sometimes. . . For instance that poor Monsieur 
Bombonnel. . 

“ Ah ! yes, killer of panthers. . . ” said Tar- 
tarin, rather disdainfully. 

“Did you know him?” asked the little gentle- 
man. 

“ Hey ! pardi ! . . If I know him ! . . We have 
hunted a score of times together.” 

The little gentleman smiled. “ Then you do 
hunt the panther sometimes, Monsieur Tartarin?” 

“ Occasionally — to pass the time,” said the 
ruffled Tartarin. 

Then he added, raising his head with an heroic 
gesture that inflamed the hearts of the two 
cocottes : — 

“ They are nothing to lions ! ” 

“ In fact,” ventured the photographer, " a panther 
is only a big cat. . .” 

“ Precisely,” said Tartarin, not sorry to reduce 
the fame of Bombonnel, especially in presence of 
ladies. 

Here the diligence stopped; the conductor 


Acquaintance with a Gentleman. 103 

opened the door, and addressing the little old 
gentleman, said with a very respectful air : — 

“ Here we are, monsieur.” 

The little gentleman rose, got out of the diligence, 
but before closing the door, he turned and said : 

“Will you permit me to give you a piece of 
advice, Monsieur Tartarin? ” 

“What is it, monsieur?” 

“ Listen. You look to me a worthy man, and I 
would like to tell you the real truth. . . Return at 
once to Tarascon, Monsieur Tartarin. . . You will 
lose your time here. . . There are still a few pan- 
thers left in the provinces, but fie ! that is much 
too small game for you. . . As for lions, that’s all 
over. There is not a lion left in Algeria. . . My 
friend Chassaing killed the last.” 

On which the little gentleman bowed, shut the 
door, and went off laughing with his bag and his 
umbrella. 

“ Conductor,” demanded Tartarin, with his ter- 
rible grimace, “Who is that man?” 

“What! don’t you know him? Why, that is 
Monsieur Bombonnel.” 


104 


Tartarin of Tarascon . 


III. 


A convent of lions. 

At Milianah Tartarin of Tarascon abandoned 
the diligence, leaving it to continue its way to the 
South. 

Two days of rough jolting, two nights spent with 
eyes wide open, gazing through the window in 
hopes of perceiving in the fields or on the borders 
of the highroad the formidable shadow of the king 
of beasts, — such insomnia needed relief. Besides, 
since I must tell all, after his misadventure with 
Bombonnel, Tartarin, in spite of his weapons, his 
fez, and his terrible grimace, felt ill at ease before 
the Orleansville photographer and the two young 
ladies of the Third Hussars. 

He now proceeded through the wide streets of 
Milianah, full of beautiful trees and fountains, in 
search of an inn to suit him ; but all the while 
thinking, poor man ! of Bombonnel’s last words. . . 
Suppose they were true? Suppose there were 
really no more lions in Algeria? . . What, then, 
was the good of these travels, these toils? . . 

Suddenly, at the turn of a street, our hero found 
himself face to face . . . with what? Guess. . . 
With a superb lion, waiting before the door of a 


A Convent of Lions . 105 

cafe, seated royally on his hind-quarters, his tawny 
mane in the sunlight. 

“ Why did they tell me there were none? ” cried 
the Tarasconese, jumping backward. Hearing 
this exclamation, the lion lowered his head, and 
taking in his jaws a wooden bowl which stood 
before him on the sidewalk he held it humbly 
towards Tartarin standing motionless and stupe- 
fied. . . Just then a passing Arab flung a sou into 
the bowl ; the lion waved his tail. . . Then Tar- 
tarin comprehended all. He saw, what emotion 
had hitherto prevented him from seeing, namely, 
the crowd of people gathered around that poor, 
tame, blinded lion, and two big negroes armed 
with cudgels, who were tramping the animal across 
the town as Savoyards do their marmots. 

The blood of the hero gave one bound. 
“ Wretches ! ” he cried, in a voice of thunder, “ thus 
to degrade these noble beasts ! ” And, springing 
upon the lion, he tore that filthy bowl from his 
royal jaws. . . The two negroes, thinking him a 
robber, rushed upon the intruder with uplifted 
clubs. . . The tussle was terrible. . . The negroes 
banged, the women bawled, the children laughed. 
An old Jewish cobbler called out, from the depths 
of his shop: “To the joustice of peace! the jous- 
tice of peace ! ” Even the lion, in his benighted 
state, essayed a roar, and the unfortunate Tartarin, 
after a desperate struggle, was rolled in the dust 
’mid the sous and the sweepings. 

At this juncture a man forced his way through 
the crowd, scattered the negroes with a word, the 


io6 Tartarin of Tar as con, 

women and children with a sign, picked up Tar- 
tarin, brushed him, shook him, and seated him, 
completely out of breath, upon a milestone. 

“ O priinc-e , is it you ? ” cried the worthy Tartarin, 
rubbing his sides. 

“Yes, my valiant friend, ’t is I. . . No sooner 
was your letter received than I confided Bai'a to 
her brother, hired a post-chaise, did fifty leagues 
at top speed, and here I am, just in time to save 
you from the brutality of these boors. . . What 
have you done, just heaven ! to get yourself into 
such danger? ” 

“ I could not help it, prfince. . . To see that 
unhappy lion with a bowl between his teeth ! hu- 
miliated, vanquished, derided ! an object of ridicule 
to these beggarly mussulmans ! ” 

“ But you are mistaken, my noble friend. This 
lion is, on the contrary, an object of respect and 
adoration among them. It is a sacred animal, and 
forms part of a convent of lions, founded about 
three hundred years ago by Mahommed-ben-Aouda, 
a sort of La Trappe, stupendous and savage, full of 
roars and wild-beast odours, where a strange class 
of monks raise and tame lions by the hundred, and 
send them from there to all parts of Northern 
Africa accompanied by mendicant friars. . . The 
gifts received through these friars support the con- 
vent and its mosque ; and if the two negroes 
showed temper just now, it was only because if a 
single sou of those charitable gifts is lost or stolen 
by their fault the lion will instantly devour them.” 

While listening to this improbable, though truth- 


A Convent of Lions . 107 

ful, narrative, Tartarin of Tarascon hugged himself 
in joy, and snuffed the air noisily. 

“ What gratifies me in all this,” he said, by way 
of conclusion, “ is that, in spite of Monsieur Bom- 
bonnel, there are still lions in Algeria ! . 

“ Lions in Algeria ! ” cried the prince with em 
thusiasm. . . “ To-morrow we will go and beat the 

plain of the Ch^lifif, and you shall see ! you shall 
see ! . 

‘‘What, prthice ! . . you, yourself? Do you in- 
tend to hunt? ” 

“ Parbleu ! do you suppose I would leave you to 
go alone into the heart of Africa among those 
savage tribes whose language and customs are un- 
known to you? . . No ! no ! illustrious Tartarin, I 
quit you no more. . . Wherever you are, I will 
be.” 

“Oh! pre'ince, pr Since . . .” 

And Tartarin, radiant, pressed the valiant Greg- 
ory to his heart, proudly reflecting that, like Jules 
G6rard, Bombonnel, and all the other famous lion- 
slayers, he, too, would have a foreign prince to 
accompany his adventures. 


IO 8 


Tartarin of Taras con. 


IV. 


The caravan on the march. 

The next day, at the earliest hour, the intrepid 
Tartarin and the no less intrepid Prince Gregory, 
followed by half a dozen negro porters, issued 
from Milianah and descended toward the plain of 
the Ch^liff by a delightful path shady with jasmine, 
palm-trees, locust-trees and wild olives, between 
two hedges of native gardens where thousands of 
joyous springs leaped bubbling and singing from 
rock to rock. . . A scene of Libanus. 

Prince Gregory, loaded with weapons like the 
great Tartarin, had donned a magnificent and 
singular kepi adorned with gold lace and a design 
of oak leaves embroidered in silver filigree, which 
gave his Highness a false air of a Mexican general, 
or station-master on the banks of the Danube. 

That devil of a kepi puzzled Tartarin exceed- 
ingly, and he timidly asked an explanation. 

“ Indispensable head-gear for travelling in 
Africa,” replied the prince, with gravity; and 
polishing the visor with the sleeve of his coat, he 
proceeded to instruct his guileless companion 
about the important role played by the kepi in 
our national relations with the Arabs, the terror 
that that military symbol alone has the privilege to 
inspire ; so much so that the civil administration 


The Caravan on the March . 109 

has been obliged to cover the heads of its em- 
ployes, from the labourer on the roads to the 
receiver of taxes, with kepis. In short, to govern 
Algeria — ’t is the prince who speaks — it is not a 
strong head, nor even a head at all, that is needed ; 
a kepi suffices; a fine gold-laced kepi, shining at 
the top of a numskull, like Gessler’s helmet. 

Thus talking and philosophizing, the caravan 
went its way. The porters skipped, barefooted, 
from rock to rock like monkeys. The weapons 
rattled in their cases. The guns glittered. The 
natives as they passed bowed down to earth before 
that magic kepi. . . Above, on the ramparts of 
Milianah, the head of the Arabian department 
walking in the cool of the morning with his lady, 
heard these unusual noises, saw the shining of the 
muzzles through the branches, and, supposing it a 
sudden attack, ordered the drawbridge opened, 
called the garrison to arms, and put the town 
incontinently into a state of siege. 

A fine debut, truly, for the caravan ! 

Unfortunately, before the close of the day mat- 
ters went wrong. Of the negroes who carried the 
baggage, one was taken with atrocious colicky 
pains, after eating the diachylon of the medicine 
chest. Another fell down dead drunk by the 
roadside, having drunk up the camphorated 
brandy. A third, he who bore the album of 
travel, seduced by the gilded clasps and persuaded 
that he was carrying off the treasures of Mecca, 
ran away at top speed into the Zaccar. . . It was 
necessary to consider matters. The caravan halted 


no Tar tar in of Taras con. 

and held counsel under the flickering shade of an 
old fig-tree. 

“ My advice is,” said the prince, endeavouring, 
but without success, to melt a tablet of pemmican 
in a perfected species of saucepan with a triple 
bottom, “ my advice is to renounce those negro 
porters at once. There’s an Arab market close 
by. Our best plan is to go there immediately and 
buy a lot of donkeys. . .” 

“ No ! . . no ! . . not donkeys,” interrupted the 
great Tartarin, hastily, flushing red with the recob 
lection of Noiraud. 

Then he added — the hypocrite : — 

“ How do you expect such little animals to 
carry all our paraphernalia?” 

The prince smiled. 

“You are mistaken as to that, my illustrious 
friend,” he said. “ Lean and puny as he looks to 
you, the Algerine bourriquot has solid loins. . . He 
must have them to carry all he does carry . . . ask 
the Arabs. Here’s how they explain our colonial 
organization : At the top, they say, is the mouci> 
governor, with a great stick, who raps his staff; 
the staff to avenge themselves, rap the soldier, the 
soldier raps the settler, the settler raps the Arab, 
the Arab raps the negro, the negro raps the Jew, 
the Jew raps the bourriquot ; and the poor little 
donkey, having no one to rap, bears all. So you 
see, he can very well bear your cases.” 

“All the same,” persisted Tartarin of Tarascon, 
“ I think that for the look of our caravan donkeys 
are not the thing. . . I prefer something more 


The Caravan on the March . 1 1 1 

oriental. . . For instance, if we could buy a 
camel. . 

“Just as you like,” said his Highness, and they 
took their way to the Arab market. 

The market was only a short distance off on the 
banks of the Cheliff. . . In it were some five or 
six thousand Arabs in rags, swarming in the sun, 
and noisily bargaining amid jars of black olives, 
pots of honey, sacks of spices, heaps of cigars; 
and all around them fires, where sheep, streaming 
with butter, were roasting whole, and shambles in 
the open air, where naked negroes, their feet in 
blood, their arms reddened with gore, were cutting 
up with little knives the animals that were hanging 
from a pole. 

In a corner, under a tent patched with a hundred 
colours, sits a Moorish clerk with a big book and 
spectacles. Near by, a group of Arabs uttering 
shouts of rage ; they are playing a game of roulette 
stuck on a sack of wheat; a number of Kabyles 
watching the game and fanning themselves. . . Far- 
ther on, much stamping, joy, and shouts of laughter 
from a crowd who are watching a Jewish merchant 
and his mule drowning in the river. . . And scor- 
pions, dogs, buzzards, flies ! . . oh, flies ! . . 

But as fate would have it, camels lacked. How- 
ever, they ended by finding one which some 
M’zabites were seeking to get rid of. T was a 
camel of the desert, the classic camel, bald, mel- 
ancholy, with a long bedouin head, and his hump, 
now grown limp from much fasting, hanging sadly 
to one side. 


1 1 2 Tartarin of Tar as con, 

Tartarin thought him so fine that he wished to 
mount the whole caravan on top of him. . . Al- 
ways the Oriental craze ! . . 

The beast knelt down. The baggage was 
strapped on. 

The prince installed himself on the animal’s neck. 
Tartarin, desiring more majesty, caused himself to 
be hoisted to the top of the hump, between two 
cases ; and there, proud and securely wedged in, he 
saluted with a noble gesture the assembled market 
and gave the signal of departure. . . Thunder ! 
if Tarascon could only have seen him then ! . . 

The camel rose, stretched out his knotty legs, 
and began his flight. . . 

Oh, horrors ! After a few strides, behold Tartarin 
turning pale, and the heroic fez resuming, one by 
one, its former positions on board the “ Zouave.” 
That devil of a camel rolled like a frigate. 

“ Preince ! prfince /” murmured Tartarin, livid, 
and clutching at the tuft on the camel’s hump; 
“ pr&'nce, let us get down. . . I feel ... I feel . . . 
that I am about to . . . make France a . . . 
spectacle ! . 

Va te promener ! the camel was off and nothing 
could stop him. Four thousand Arabs ran behind 
on naked feet, gesticulating, laughing like madmen, 
and making their six hundred thousand ivory teeth 
glitter in the sunshine. . . 

The great man of Tarascon was forced to resign 
himself. He sank down sadly on the hump. The 
fez took any and all of the positions it chose and — 
France was made a spectacle. 


The Night-Watch . 


113 


V. 

The night-watch in a copse of oleanders. 

However picturesque may have been their new 
mount, the lion-slayers, in the end, were forced to 
renounce it, on account of the fez. They there- 
fore continued their way, as before, on foot, and 
the caravan went calmly on, by short stages, to 
the South ; the Tarasconese at its head, the Mon- 
tenegrin at its tail, the camel between with the 
weapons, etc. 

The expedition lasted nearly a month. 

During that month, the indomitable Tartarin, 
seeking lions unfindable, wandered from village to 
village on the vast plain of the Cheliff, across that 
formidable and preposterous French Algeria, where 
the perfumes of the Far East are complicated with 
a strong odour of absinthe and barracks, Abraham 
and Zouzou mingled; something fairy like and 
artlessly burlesque, like a page of the Old Testa- 
ment recited by Sergeant Ram6e or Corporal 
Pitou. . . Curious spectacle to eyes that can 
see. . . A savage and rotten population which we 
are civilizing by giving them our vices . . . the 
ferocious and uncontrolled authority of fantastic 
pachas who blow their noses on their ribbons of 
the Legion of honour, and for a yes or a no ad* 

8 


1 14 Tartarin of Tar as con . 

minister bastinado to their people . . . justice with- 
out conscience applied by cadis in big spectacles, 
regular Tartuffes of the Koran and the law, who 
dream of a 15th of August and promotion beneath 
the palm-trees, and sell their verdicts, as Esau his 
birthright, for a dish of lentils, or of kouss-kouss 
and sugar . . . licentious and drunken sheiks, former 
orderlies of some General Tussuf or other, who 
guzzle champagne with the Mahonese washer- 
women, and junket on roast mutton, while before 
their very tents their tribes are starving, and quar- 
relling with the hounds for the scraps that fall 
from their master’s orgy. 

Then, all around, plains laid waste, grass burned 
up, thorn-bushes everywhere, thickets of cactus 
and prickly-pear, the granary of France ! . . Gran- 
ary void of grain, forsooth ! rich only in jackals 
and bed-bugs. . . Abandoned settlements, terri 
fied tribes, going they know not where, flying from 
hunger, and sowing the highways with dead bod- 
ies. At long intervals, a French village, with its 
houses in ruins, fields uncultivated, grasshoppers 
rampant, eating up even the curtains at the win- 
dows, and all the colonists in the cafes drink- 
ing absinthe and discussing the constitution and 
schemes of reform. 

This is what Tartarin might have seen had he 
given himself the trouble to observe ; but, con- 
sumed by his leonine passion, the man of Tarascon 
went straight before him, looking neither to the 
right hand nor to the left, his eye obstinately fixed 
on those imaginary monsters who never appeared. 


”5 


The Night-Watch . 

As the shelter-tent obstinately refused to open 
and the tablets of pemmican to melt, the caravan 
was obliged to put up, night and morning, with 
the natives. Everywhere, thanks to the kepi of 
Prince Gregory, our hunters were received with 
open arms. They lodged with agas in strange 
palaces, huge windowless farm-houses, where they 
saw, pell-mell, narghiles and mahogany bureaus, 
Smyrna rugs and moderator-lamps, chests of cedar- 
wood filled with Turkish sequins, and clocks in the 
style Louis-Philippe. . . Wherever they went splen- 
did fetes, dijfas, fantasias were given to Tartarin. . . 
In his honour whole goums [native contingent to 
the French army] made powder speak and showed 
off their burnous in the sun. Then, when the 
powder had spoken, the worthy aga came round 
and presented his bill. . . That is what is called 
Arab hospitality. 

But still no lions. No more lions than there are 
on the Pont Neuf. . . 

And yet the hero was not discouraged. Plung- 
ing bravely into the South he spent whole days in 
beating up the coppices, poking among the dwarf 
palm-trees with the end of his carbine, and calling 
“ Scat ! scat ! ” at every bush. Moreover, every 
evening before he went to bed he lay in wait for 
two or three hours. Vain trouble ! the lion never 
showed himself. 

But one evening, towards six o’clock, as the 
caravan was threading its way through a grove of 
violet mastic-trees, where plump quail, dulled by the 
heat, were fluttering here and there in the grass, 


1 1 6 Tartarin of Tar as con, 

Tartarin of Tarascon thought he heard — but so 
far-off, so vague, so broken by the breeze — that 
wondrous roar he had often listened to in Taras- 
con behind the menagerie Mitaine. 

At first our hero thought he dreamed . . . But 
an instant later, still far off though more distinct, 
the roar was heard again; and this time, while 
from all corners of the horizon howled the dogs of 
the natives, the hump of the camel, so shaken by 
terror that the weapons and the aliments clattered, 
quivered visibly. 

No longer any doubt. ’T was a lion . . . Quick, 
quick ! on the watch ! Not a minute to lose ! 

Close at hand was an old marabout (tomb of a 
saint), with a white cupola and the yellow slippers 
of the deceased deposited in a niche above the 
door, together with a medley of fantastic ex-votos , 
flaps of burnous, gold thread, red hair, etc., hang- 
ing to the walls. Tartarin of Tarascon put his 
prince and his camel in that retreat, and went him- 
self in quest of an ambush. Prince Gregory 
wished to follow him, but the hero declined ; he 
was bent on confronting the lion alone. Never- 
theless, he requested his Highness not to go away, 
and, as a measure of precaution, he confided to 
him his wallet, a fat wallet, filled with precious 
papers and bank bills, which he feared might be 
scarified by the claws of the lion. That done, 
the hero proceeded to seek for his post. 

A hundred steps in front of the marabout a little 
copse of oleanders fluttered in the twilight haze, 
on the bank of a river that was almost dry. There 


The Night- Watch . 1 1 7 

our hero lay in wait, one knee to earth, according 
to the formula, his carbine in his hands, and his 
hunting-knife planted proudly before him in the 
sand of the shore. 

Night came on. The rosy light of nature turned 
to violet, then to a sombre blue . . . Below, among 
the pebbles of the river, a little pool of clear, still 
water shone like a mirror. This was plainly the 
drinking-place of wild animals. On the slope of 
the opposite bank could be seen the path their 
big paws made among the mastics. That myste- 
rious slope caused a shudder. Add to all this the 
vague, low, swarming noises of an African night, 
rustling branches, velvet steps of rodent creatures, 
the shrilly bark of jackals, and above, in the sky, 
one hundred, two hundred yards above him, great 
flocks of cranes passing with a cry like that of 
strangled children, — you must admit there was 
enough in all this to agitate any one. 

Tartarin was agitated. Very much so, in fact. 
His teeth chattered, poor man ! and on the handle 
of the hunting-knife planted in the sand the muz- 
zle of his carbine rattled like a pair of castanets . . . 
But what do you expect? There are days when 
persons are not in the mood ; besides, where 
would be the merit if heroes were never afraid ? . . 

Well, yes ! Tartarin was afraid, and afraid all 
the time, too. Nevertheless he held good one 
hour, two hours — but heroism has its limits . . . 
Very near to him, in the dry bed of the river, he 
suddenly heard steps, and the rolling of pebbles. 
This time terror overcame him. He fired two 


1 1 8 Tartarin of Tar as con. 

shots at random and ran with all his legs to the 
marabout, leaving his cutlass upright in the sand as 
a commemorative cross of the greatest panic that 
ever assailed the soul of a slayer of hydras. 

“ Help, pr&fnce, help ! . . the lion ! . 

Silence. 

“ Preince, prefnce ! are you there ? ” 

The prince was not there. Against the white 
wall of the marabout that excellent camel alone 
projected, in the moonlight, the fantastic shadow 
of his hump . . . Prince Gregory had just made 
off with the wallet and the bank-bills — his High- 
ness having awaited the opportunity for more than 
a month . . . 


At Last / 


119 


VI. 

A t last / . . 

The day following this tragic and adventurous 
evening, when our hero woke at dawn and ac- 
quired full certainty that the prince and his funds 
were really gone — gone without return, when he 
found himself alone in that little white tomb, 
bc-crayed, robbed, abandoned in the wilds of savage 
Africa with a dromedary and a few coppers for all 
resource, — then, for the first time, the Tarasconese 
hero doubted. He doubted friendship, he doubted 
fame, he even doubted lions ; and, hero though he 
was, the great man wept. 

Now, while he was pensively seated on the steps 
of the marabout , his head in his two hands, his 
carbine between his legs, and the camel looking 
sadly at him, suddenly the branches of the grove 
before him parted, and Tartarin, stupefied, saw, 
ten steps before him, a gigantic lion, advancing, 
with head raised high and formidable roars that 
shook the white walls of the marabout and the 
tinsel that hung there, and even the slippers of the 
deceased in their niche. 

The hero, alone, did not tremble. 

“ At last ! ” he cried, bounding up, his gun to 
shoulder. . . Pan ! . . pan ! pfft ! pfft ! ’T was 


120 Tartarin of Tar as con. 

done. . . In the lion’s head were two explosive 
balls. For an instant, on the glowing background 
of an African sky, rose frightful fireworks of scat- 
tered brains and smoking blood and tawny fur. 
Then all subsided, and Tartarin beheld . . . two big 
and furious negroes rushing at him with uplifted 
cudgels. The negroes of Milianah ! 

Oh, misery ! ’t was the tamed lion, the poor blind 
beast of Mohammed’s convent, which the Tarascon- 
ese bullets had now laid low ! 

This time, by Mahomet! Tartarin had a fine 
escape. Drunk with fanatic fury the negro men- 
dicants would surely have torn him to pieces if the 
God of Christians had not sent to his aid a liberat- 
ing angel, the garde-champetre of the district of 
Orleansville, who arrived, his sabre under his arm, 
by a woodpath. 

The sight of the municipal kepi calmed the 
wrath of the negroes instantly. Peaceful and 
majestic the man with the badge drew up the 
proce s-verbal, loaded what remained of the lion 
upon the camel, ordered complainants and delin- 
quent to follow him, and took the way to Orleans- 
ville, where the whole affair was placed in the 
hands of the authorities. 

’T was a long and terrible investigation. 

After the Algeria of the nomads, which he had 
just travelled over, Tartarin of Tarascon now knew 
another Algeria, no less preposterous and formi- 
dable, the Algeria of the towns, litigious and petti- 
fogging. He now knew the squinting judiciary 
which plots in the corners of cafes, the bohemia of 


At Last! . . 


I 2 I 


the limbs of the law, the briefs that smelt of ab- 
sinthe, the white cravats discoloured with crescia; 
he knew the bailiffs, the solicitors, the business 
agents, all those stamped-paper grasshoppers, 
hungry and lean, who devour the colonist to the 
heels of his boots, and strip him, leaf by leaf, like 
a stalk of wheat. . . 

First of all it became necessary to discover 
whether the lion was killed on civil territory or on 
military territory. In the first case, the affair was 
the concern of the tribunal of commerce ; in the 
second, Tartarin would be brought before the 
council of war. At those words, “ council of 
war,” the impressionable Tarasconese already saw 
himself shot at the foot of the ramparts, or crouch- 
ing in dungeon depths. . . 

The terrible thing was, that the boundaries of 
the two territories are so vague in Algeria. . . At 
last, however, after a month of sendings to and fro, 
intrigues, waitings in the sun in the courtyards of 
the officials, it was established that if, on the one 
hand, the lion was killed on military territory, on 
the other, Tartarin, when he fired, was on civil 
territory. The affair was therefore judged in the 
civil courts and our hero got off with a fine of 
two thousand five hundred francs indemnity, with- 
out costs. 

But how could he pay it? The few piastres that 
escaped the prince’s raid had long since gone in 
legal papers and judiciary absinthes. 

The unfortunate lion-slayer was therefore reduced 
to selling his case of weapons piecemeal, carbine 


1 22 Tartarin of Tarascon . 

by carbine. He sold the daggers, the Malay 
krishes, the tomahawks. . . A grocer bought 
the alimentary preserves. An apothecary all that 
was left of the diachylon. Even the big boots 
themselves departed and followed the perfected 
shelter-tent to the shop of a merchant of bric-a- 
brac, who raised them to the dignity of Cochin- 
Chinese curiosities. . . The fine paid, nothing 
remained to Tartarin but the lion’s skin and the 
dromedary. The skin he packed up carefully and 
sent to Tarascon, directed to his good friend the 
brave Commander Bravida (we shall presently see 
what came of that fabulous hide). As for the 
camel, he intended to use that to convey him to 
Algiers, not by mounting it, but by selling it to 
pay the diligence ; which is a better way of travel- 
ling than camel-back. Unfortunately, the animal 
was difficult to dispose of; not a soul would offer 
a single farthing. 

Tartarin was, however, determined to get back 
to Algiers. He longed to see his Baia’s blue 
corselet, his little house, his fountains, and to 
lie at rest upon the trefoiled pavement of his 
cloister, while awaiting the arrival of funds from 
France. Consequently, our hero did not hesitate; 
distressed, but not discouraged, he started to make 
the journey on foot, without money, and by short 
marches. 

In this conjuncture, the camel did not abandon 
him. That weird animal was possessed by an in- 
explicable fondness for his master, and, seeing him 
depart from Orleansville, he set out religiously to 


At Last ! . . 


123 


follow at a walk behind him, measuring his steps 
to his master’s, and not leaving him by so much 
as an inch. 

At first, Tartarin thought this touching; such 
fidelity, such tried devotion went to his heart, all the 
more because the animal was accommodating and 
fed on nothing. But after a few days’ march, the 
hero began to be bored by having such a melan- 
choly companion perpetually at his heels ; a com- 
panion who recalled to him his many misadventures. 
Presently, bitterness supervening, he grew angry 
with the dromedary’s mournful air, his hump, and 
his general look of silliness. To tell the honest 
truth, he came to hate him, and to think only of 
how to get rid of him ; but the animal held tight. . . 
Tartarin tried to lose him, the camel found him ; 
he tried to run, the camel ran faster. . . He 
shouted to him : “ Go away ! ” and flung stones at 
him. The camel stopped, gazed upon him with a 
melancholy eye, then, a moment later, started 
again and caught up with him. Tartarin was 
forced to resign himself. 

But when, after a march of eight full days, the 
Tarasconese hero, dusty, jaded, saw from afar, 
sparkling amid the verdure, the first white terraces 
of Algiers, when he reached the gates of the town 
on the noisy highway from Mustapha crowded with 
zouaves, biskris, Mahonese, all swarming around 
him and watching him defile with the dromedary, 
his patience came to an end : “No! no ! ” he said 
to himself, “ it is impossible. . . I cannot enter 
Algiers with such a beast ! ” and, taking advantage 


124 Tartarin of Taras con. 

of a block of vehicles he made a dart into the 
fields and hid in a ditch. . . 

An instant later, he saw above his head on the 
pavement of the highway, the dromedary swinging 
past him with mighty strides and stretching out 
his neck with an anxious air. 

Then, relieved of a heavy burden, the hero 
issued from his hiding-place and entered the town 
by a byway, which ran along the wall of his 
little garden. 


Catastrophes on Catastrophes . 125 


VII. 


Catastrophes on catastrophes. 

Arriving in front of his Moorish house, Tar- 
tarin stopped short, much astonished. It was 
evening, the street was deserted. Through the 
low arched door, which the negress had forgotten 
to shut, came laughter, the rattle of glasses, the 
popping of corks, and, rising high above that 
pretty racket, the voice of a woman singing, 
clearly and merrily : — 

Lovest thou, Marco la Belle, 

To dance in the flowery salons ? 

“ Throne of God ! ” exclaimed the Tarasconese, 
turning white, and he rushed into the courtyard. 

Unhappy Tartarin ! What a spectacle awaited 
him ! . . Beneath the arcades of the little cloister, 
amid flasks, confectionery, scattered cushions, 
pipes, tambourines, guitars, stood Baia, without 
corselet or jacket, nothing but a chemise of silver 
gauze and pale rose trousers, singing Marco la 
Belle with the cap of a naval officer perched on 
one ear. . . On a mat at her feet, stuffed with 
love and sweetmeats, Barbassou, that infamous 
Barbassou, was bursting with laughter as he listened 
to her. 


126 Tartarin of Tarascon. 

The apparition of Tartarin, haggard, thinner, 
dusty; his eyes flashing, the fez bristling, cut 
short this amiable Turco-Marseillaise orgy. Bai'a 
gave the little cry of a frightened hare and ran into 
the house. Barbassou, not disturbing himself, 
laughed louder than ever. 

“Hey! hey! Monsieur Tartarin, what do you 
say now? Does n’t she speak French?” 

Tartarin of Tarascon advanced, furious. 

“ Captain ! ” 

“ Digo-li que vengut, monn bon /” cried Ba’fa, 
bending over the gallery of the upper floor and 
making a pretty canaille gesture. The poor man, 
thunderstruck, let himself drop upon a cushion. 
His Moorish lady knew the Marseillaise jargon ! 

“Didn’t I tell you to beware of the Algerine 
women?” said Captain Barbassou, sententiously. 
“ They are just the same as that Montenegrin 
prince of yours.” 

Tartarin raised his head. 

“Do you know where the prince is now?” he 
asked. 

“ Oh ! not far off. He is living for five years in 
that fine prison at Mustapha. The scamp was 
caught with his hand in the bag. . . But it is not 
the first time they have had him in limbo. His 
Highness has already done three years in a house 
of detention somewhere . . . and, bless me ! if I 
don’t think it was at Tarascon.” 

“At Tarascon!..” cried Tartarin, suddenly 
enlightened. . . “ That ’s why he knew only one 

half of the town. . . ” 


Catastrophes on Catastrophes . 127 

“No doubt! no doubt! Tarascon seen from 
the prison windows. . . Ah ! my poor Monsieur 
Tartarin, we have to keep our eyes well open in 
this damnable country; if not, we are liable to 
very disagreeable things . . . such as your affair 
with the muezzin. . 

“ What affair? what muezzin?” 

“ Hey ! pardi! why, the muezzin opposite, who 
made love to Baifa. . . The Akbar related the 
affair the other day, and all Algiers is still laugh- 
ing over it. . . ’T was droll how that muezzin on 
the top of his minaret, chanting his prayers, con- 
trived, under your very nose, to make his proposals 
to the little one and fix a rendezvous while invoking 
the name of Allah. . 

“Is every one a villain in this cursed land?” 
roared Tartarin. 

Barbassou made the gesture of a philosopher. 

“ My dear fellow, you know, new countries ! . . 
Never mind ! if you take my advice, you ’ll go 
back as fast as you can to Tarascon.” 

“ Go back . . . that ’s easy enough to say . . . 
But where’s the money? . . You don’t know how 
they ’ve plucked me, down there, in the desert.” 

“ Never mind that ! ” cried the captain, laughing. 
“The ‘Zouave ’ starts to-morrow and, if you like, 
I ’ll take you back to your native land. . . Will 
that suit you, compatriot? All right. You have 
only one thing more to do. There ’s a few bottles 
of champagne and half a crust still left ... sit you 
down there . . . and no rancour ! . .” 

After a moment’s hesitation, demanded by his 


128 Tartarin of Tar as con. 

dignity, Tartarin bravely chose his course. He 
sat down ; they touched glasses ; Ba'ia descended 
on hearing the corks, and sang the last verses of 
Marco la Belle y the fete lasting far into the night. 

Towards three in the morning, his head light 
and his foot heavy, the worthy Tartarin was return- 
ing with his friend the captain when, on passing 
the mosque, the recollection of the muezzin and 
his tricks made him laugh, and suddenly a fine 
idea of vengeance came into his head. The door 
was open. He went in ; followed the long pas- 
sages covered with mats, went up, up, and still up, 
until he found himself in a little Turkish oratory, 
where an open-worked iron lantern was swaying 
from the roof and casting fantastic shadows on the 
walls. 

The muezzin was seated on a divan, with his big 
turban, his white mantle, his Mostaganem pipe, 
and before him a large glass of fresh absinthe, 
which he sipped religiously while awaiting the hour 
to call the faithful to prayer. . . Seeing Tartarin, 
he let fall his pipe in terror. 

“ Not a word, priest,” said the hero, full of his 
idea. “ Quick, your turban ! your mantle ! . . 

The muezzin, trembling violently, gave his tur- 
ban, his pelisse, anything demanded. Tartarin 
put them on, and went gravely to the terrace of 
the minaret. 

The sea was shining in the distance. The white 
roofs gleamed in the moonlight. Sounds of be- 
lated guitars came softly on the breeze. . . The 
Tarascon muezzin collected himself for a moment, 


Catastrophes on Catastrophes . 129 

then, raising his arm, he began his psalmody in a 
high-pitched voice : — 

“ La Allah it Allah. . . Mahomet is an old 
rogue. . . Orient, Koran, pachas, lions, Moorish 
women are not worth a damn. . . There are no 
Tears. . . Only swindlers. . . Vive Tarascon!” 

And while, in fantastic jargon mingled with 
Arabic and Provengal, the illustrious Tartarin was 
thus casting to the four corners of the horizon, on 
town, plain, mountain, and ocean, his jovial male- 
diction, the clear, grave voices of the other muez- 
zins answered him from minaret to minaret, and 
the faithful in rapt devotion beat their breasts. 


130 


Tartarin of Tar as con. 


VIII. 

Tarascon ! Tarascon 1 

Midday. The “ Zouave” has her steam up, 
ready to start. Overhead, on the balcony of the 
Cafe Valentin, military officers level their telescopes 
and come, one by one, according to rank, the 
colonel at their head, to watch the departure of the 
happy little boat about to go to France. This is 
the great amusement of headquarters. . . Below, 
the roadstead sparkles. The breeches of certain 
old Turkish cannon buried along the quay flame 
in the sun. The passengers are hurrying. Bisk- 
ris and Mahonese pile the baggage on the boats. 

Tartarin of Tarascon has no baggage; and here 
he comes, down the rue de la Marine, through the 
little market full of bananas and watermelon, ac- 
companied by his friend, Captain Barbassou. The 
unfortunate hero has left upon the Moorish shores 
his weapons and his illusions ; he is now preparing 
himself to sail back to Tarascon, his hands in his 
pockets. . . But scarcely had he jumped into the 
captain’s gig, before a breathless animal rushed 
headlong from the market-place, and precipitated 
itself towards him at a gallop. ’T was the camel, 
the faithful camel, which for twenty-four consecu- 
tive hours had been seeking its master in Algiers. 


Taras con ! Tar as con / 1 3 1 

Tartarin, on seeing him, changed colour, and 
feigned not to know him. But the camel was in 
earnest. He wriggled at the edge of the quay. 
He called to his friend ; he looked at him tenderly. 
“ Take me! take me!” his sad eyes seemed to 
say; “take me in that boat, far, far away from 
this pasteboard painted Araby, this ridiculous 
Orient, full of locomotives and diligences, where 
I — poor misplaced dromedary — know not what 
will become of me. You are the last Turk, I am 
the last camel. . . Let us part no more, O my 
Tartarin ! . .” 

“ Is that camel yours?” asked the captain. 

“Not at all!” responded Tartarin, who shud- 
dered at the idea of re-entering Tarascon with that 
ridiculous attendant; and, impudently disowning 
the companion of his misfortunes he spurned the 
soil of Algiers with his foot, and gave the boat an 
impetus that sent it from the shore. . . The camel 
smelt of the water, stretched his long neck till his 
joints all cracked, and springing headlong behind 
the boat he swam in company toward the 
“Zouave,” his big hump floating like a gourd, and 
his great neck rising high out of water like the 
prow of a trireme. 

Boat and camel arrived together under the 
steamer’s quarter. 

“ I feel badly for that poor dromedary,” said 
Captain Barbassou, quite touched. “ I think I ’ll 
take him aboard, and make a present of him, when 
I reach Marseilles, to the Zoological Garden.” 

Accordingly the camel, now weighty with sea- 


132 Tartarin of Tar as con, 

water, was hoisted on board by a great force of 
ropes and pulleys, and the “ Zouave ” set sail. 

During the two days the voyage lasted, Tartarin 
remained alone in his cabin ; not that the sea was 
rough, nor that the fez had much to suffer, but 
that devil of a camel persisted in making ridiculous 
demonstrations whenever his master appeared on 
deck. . . You never saw a camel advertise his 
master like that one ! . . 

Hour by hour, through the porthole of the cabin 
(from which he occasionally looked out) Tartarin 
watched the paling of the Algerine blue sky; till, 
at last, one morning, through a silvery mist he 
heard, with joy, the clanging of the steeples of 
Marseilles. The voyage was over . . . the “ Zou- 
ave ” anchored. 

Our man, who had no baggage, landed, without 
saying a word, crossed Marseilles in haste, afraid 
of being followed by the camel, and only breathed 
freely when he found himself ensconced in a third- 
class railway-carriage, -and moving at a good pace 
toward Tarascon. . . Deceptive security! Hardly 
had they gone two leagues from Marseilles, when 
the heads of all the passengers were at the windows. 
They shouted, they wondered. Tartarin in turn 
looked out, and . . . what did he perceive? . . The 
camel, sir, the inevitable camel, loping along the 
rails behind the train and keeping up with it. 
Tartarin, in consternation, sank back into his 
corner, and closed his eyes. 

After this disastrous expedition, he counted on 
returning to his house incognito. But the pres- 


Tarascon ! T arascon ! 


133 


ence of this incumbering quadruped rendered the 
thing impossible. What a re-entrance he was 
about to make, good God ! Not a sou ; not a 
lion, nothing. . . A camel ! . . 

“ Tarascon ! . . Tarascon ! . 

He had to get out. . . 

Oh, stupefaction ! scarcely had the hero’s fez 
appeared at the carriage door than a great cry: 
“ Vive Tartarin ! ” made every pane of glass in the 
roof of the station tremble. “ Vive Tartarin ! . . 
Long live the lion-killer ! ” Trumpets flourished, 
the choirs of the Orphic societies burst forth. . . 
Tartarin felt like dying; he thought it was a hoax. 
But no ! all Tarascon was there, hats in the air, 
and sympathetic. The brave Commander Bravida, 
the gunsmith Costecalde, the judge, the apothecary, 
and the noble army of sportsmen (of caps) pressed 
around their leader and bore him in triumph down 
the stairway. 

Singular effects of mirage ! the skin of the blind 
lion, sent to Bravida, was the cause of this ovation. 
That modest pelt, placed on exhibition at the club, 
had turned the heads of the Tarascon people, and 
behind them the whole South. The Semaphore 
spoke of it. A drama was constructed. It was 
not one lion that Tartarin had killed, it was ten 
lions, twenty lions, a marmalade of lions ! So 
Tartarin, disembarking at Marseilles, was already 
illustrious unawares, and an enthusiastic telegram 
had preceded him by two hours to his native town. 

But that which put a climax to the popular joy 
was the sight of a strange, fantastic animal, cov- 


134 Tartarin of Tarascon. 

ered with dust and sweat, which appeared behind 
the hero and descended, clopetty-clop, the stair- 
way of the station. Tarascon fancied for a moment 
that La Tarasque had returned. 

Tartarin reassured his compatriots. 

“That is my camel,” he said. 

And — being under the influence of the Taras- 
conese sun, that splendid sun, which makes them 
lie so ingenuously — he added, caressing the hump 
of his dromedary: — 

“ ’T is a noble beast ! . . He saw me kill all my 
lions.” 

Whereupon, he took, familiarly, the arm of the 
brave commander, flushed with happiness, and, 
followed by his camel, surrounded by his fellow- 
sportsmen, acclaimed by all the inhabitants, he 
proceeded tranquilly to the house of the baobab, 
and as he walked along he began the recital of his 
mighty hunts. 

“ Imagine to yourselves that on a certain evening, 
in the midst of the great Sahara . . .” 


TARTARIN ON THE ALPS. 



TARTARIN ON THE ALPS. 


I. 

Apparition on the Rigi-Kulm. Who is it? What uas 
said aroutid a table of six hundred covers . Rice and 
Primes. An improvised ball. The Unknown signs his 
name on the hotel register. P. C. A. 

On the i oth of August, 1880, at that fabled hour 
of the setting sun so vaunted by the guide-books 
Joanne and Baedeker, an hermetic yellow fog, 
complicated with a flurry of snow in white spirals, 
enveloped the summit of the Rigi (. Regina mon- 
tiuni) and its gigantic hotel, extraordinary to behold 
on the arid waste of those heights, — that Rigi- 
Kulm, glassed-in like a conservatory, massive as a 
citadel, where alight for a night and a day a flock 
of tourists, worshippers of the sun. 

While awaiting the second dinner-gong, the 
transient inmates of the vast and gorgeous cara- 
vansary, half frozen in their chambers above, or 
gasping on the divans of the reading-rooms in the 
damp heat of lighted furnaces, were gazing, in 
default of the promised splendours, at the whirling 
white atoms and the lighting of the great lamps 


138 Tartarin on the Alps . 

on the portico, the double glasses of which were 
creaking in the wind. 

To climb so high, to come from all four corners 
of the earth to see that. . . Oh, Baedeker ! . . 

Suddenly, something emerged from the fog 
and advanced toward the hotel with a rattling 
of metal, an exaggeration of motions, caused by 
strange accessories. 

At a distance of twenty feet through the fog the 
torpid tourists, their noses against the panes, the 
misses with curious little heads trimmed like those 
of boys, took this apparition for a cow, and then for 
a tinker bearing his utensils. 

Ten feet nearer the apparition changed again, 
showing a crossbow on the shoulder, and the visored 
cap of an archer of the middle ages, with the visor 
lowered, an object even more unlikely to meet 
with on these heights than a strayed cow or an 
ambulating tinker. 

On the portico the archer was no longer any- 
thing but a fat, squat, broad-backed man, who 
stopped to get breath and to shake the snow from 
his leggings, made like his cap of yellow cloth, and 
from his knitted comforter, which allowed scarcely 
more of his face to be seen than a few tufts of 
grizzling beard and a pair of enormous green 
spectacles made as convex as the glass of a stereo- 
scope. An alpenstock, knapsack, coil of rope 
worn in saltire, crampons and iron hooks hanging 
to the belt of an English blouse with broad 
pleats, completed the accoutrement of this perfect 
Alpinist. 


Apparition 071 the Rigi-Kulm. 139 

On the desolate summits of Mont Blanc or the 
Finsteraarhorn this clambering apparel would have 
seemed very natural, but on the Rigi-Kulm ten feet 
from a railway track ! — 

The Alpinist, it is true, came from the side 
opposite to the station, and the state of his leggings 
testified to a long march through snow and mud. 

For a moment he gazed at the hotel and 
its surrounding buildings, seemingly stupefied at 
finding, two thousand and more yards above the 
sea, a building of such importance, glazed galler- 
ies, colonnades, seven storeys of windows, and a 
broad portico stretching away between two rows 
of globe-lamps which gave to this mountain- 
summit the aspect of the Place de l’Opera of a 
winter’s evening. 

But, surprised as he may have been, the people 
in the hotel were more surprised still, and when he 
entered the immense antechamber an inquisitive 
hustling took place in the doorways of all the 
salons : gentlemen armed with billiard-cues, others 
with open newspapers, ladies still holding their 
book or their work pressed forward, while in the 
background, on the landing of the staircase, heads 
leaned over the baluster and between the chains of 
the lift. 

The man said aloud, in a powerful deep bass 
voice, the chest voice of the South, resounding 
like cymbals : — 

“ Coquin de bon sort ! what an atmosphere ! ” 

Then he stopped short, to take off his cap and 
his spectacles. 


140 Tartarin on the Alps. 

He was suffocating. 

The dazzle of the lights, the heat of the gas and 
furnace, in contrast with the cold darkness without, 
and this sumptuous display, these lofty ceilings, 
these porters bedizened with REGINA Montium in 
letters of gold on their naval caps, the white 
cravats of the waiters and the battalion of Swiss 
girls in their native costumes coming forward at 
sound of the gong, all these things bewildered 
him for a second — but only one. 

He felt himself looked at and instantly recovered 
his self-possession, like a comedian facing a full 
house. 

“ Monsieur desires . . ? ” 

This was the manager of the hotel, making the 
inquiry with the tips of his teeth, a very dashing 
manager, striped jacket, silken whiskers, the head 
of a lady’s dressmaker. 

The Alpinist, not disturbed, asked for a room, 
“ A good little room, au mouai?i ,” perfectly at ease 
with that majestic manager, as if with a former 
schoolmate. 

But he came near being angry when a.Bernese 
servant-girl, advancing, candle in hand, and stiff 
in her gilt stomacher and puffed muslin sleeves, 
inquired if Monsieur would be pleased to take the 
lift. The proposal to commit a crime would not 
have made him more indignant. 

“ A lift ! he ! . . for him ! . And his cry, his 
gesture, set all his metals rattling. 

Quickly appeased, however, he said to the 
maiden, in an amiable tone : “ Pedibusse cum jam- 


Apparition on the Rigi-Kulm . 14 1 

bisse, my pretty little cat. . And he went up 
behind her, his broad back filling the stairway, 
parting the persons he met on his way, while 
throughout the hotel the clamorous questions ran: 
“Who is he? What’s this?” muttered in the 
divers languages of all four quarters of the globe. 
Then the second dinner-gong sounded, and nobody 
thought any longer of this extraordinary personage. 

A sight to behold, that dining-room of the 
Rigi-Kulm. 

Six hundred covers around an immense horse- 
shoe table, where tall, shallow dishes of rice and 
of prunes, alternating in long files with green 
plants, reflected in their dark or transparent sauces 
the flame of the candles in the chandeliers and the 
gilding of the panelled ceiling. 

As in all Swiss tables d'hote , rice and prunes 
divided the dinner into two rival factions, and 
merely by the looks of hatred or of hankering cast 
upon those dishes it was easy to tell to which party 
the guests belonged. The Rices were known by 
their anaemic pallor, the Prunes by their congested 
skins. 

That evening the latter were the most numerous, 
counting among them several important person- 
alities, European celebrities, such as the great his- 
torian Astier-Rehu, of the French Academy, Baron 
von Stolz, an old Austro-Hungarian diplomat, 
Lord Chipendale (?), a member of the Jockey- 
Club and his niece (h’m, h’m!), the illustrious 
doctor-professor Schwanthaler, from the University 


142 Tar tar in on the Atps. 

of Bonn, a Peruvian general with eight young 
daughters. 

To these the Rices could only oppose as a 
picket-guard a Belgian senator and his family, 
Mme. Schwanthaler, the professor’s wife, and an 
Italian tenor, returning from Russia, who displayed 
his cuffs, with buttons as big as saucers, upon the 
tablecloth. 

It was these opposing currents which no doubt 
caused the stiffness and embarrassment of the 
company. How else explain the silence of six 
hundred half-frozen, scowling, distrustful persons, 
and the sovereign contempt they appeared to 
affect for one another? A superficial observer 
might perhaps have attributed this stiffness to 
stupid Anglo-Saxon haughtiness which, nowa- 
days, gives the tone in all countries to the travel- 
ling world. 

No ! no ! Beings with human faces are not born 
to hate one another thus at first sight, to despise 
each other with their very noses, lips, and eyes for 
lack of a previous introduction. There must be 
another cause. 

Rice and Prunes, I tell you. There you have 
the explanation of the gloomy silence weighing 
upon this dinner at the Rigi-Kulm, which, consid- 
ering the number and international variety of the 
guests, ought to have been lively, tumultuous, such 
as we imagine the repasts at the foot of the Tower 
of Babel to have been. 

The Alpinist entered the room, a little over- 
come by this refectory of monks, apparently doing 


Apparition on the Rigi-Kulm . 143 

penance beneath the glare of chandeliers; he 
coughed noisily without any one taking notice of 
him, and seated himself in his place of last-comer 
at the end of the room. Divested of his accou- 
trements, he was now a tourist like any other, but 
of aspect more amiable, bald, barrel-bellied, his 
beard pointed and bunchy, his nose majestic, his 
eyebrows thick and ferocious, overhanging the 
glance of a downright good fellow. 

Rice or Prunes? No one knew as yet. 

Hardly was he installed before he became un- 
easy, and leaving his place with an alarming 
bound: “Ouf! what a draught!” he said aloud, 
as he sprang to an empty chair with its back laid 
over on the table. 

He was stopped by the Swiss maid on duty — 
from the canton of Uri, that one — silver chains 
and white muslin chemisette. 

“ Monsieur, this place is engaged. . 

Then a young lady, seated next to the chair, of 
whom the Alpinist could see only her blond hair 
rising from the whiteness of virgin snows, said, 
without turning round, and with a foreign accent: 

“ That place is free ; my brother is ill, and will 
not be down.” 

“ 111? . .” said the Alpinist, seating himself, with 
an anxious, almost affectionate manner. .. “111? 
Not dangerously, an moins .” 

He said an mouain , and the word recurred in all 
his remarks, with other vocable parasites, such as 
/*/, que, //, zoiiy v£> vat , et autrement , differemment , 
etc., still further emphasized by a Southern accent, 


144 Tartarin on the Alps . 

displeasing, apparently, to the young lady, for she 
answered with a glacial glance of a black blue, the 
blue of an abyss. 

His neighbour on the right had nothing encour- 
aging about him either; this was the Italian tenor, 
a gay bird with a low forehead, oily pupils, and 
the moustache of a matador, which he twirled with 
nervous fingers at being thus separated from his 
pretty neighbour. But the good Alpinist had a 
habit of talking as he ate; it was necessary for his 
health. 

“ VI! the pretty buttons . . .” he said to him- 
self, aloud, eying the cuffs of his neighbour. 
“ Notes of music, inlaid in jasper — why, the effect 
is charmain ! . .” 

His metallic voice rang on the silence, but found 
no echo. 

“ Surely monsieur is a singer, qiit?” 

“ Non capiscoV growled the Italian into his 
moustache. 

For a moment the man resigned himself to de- 
vour without uttering a word, but the morsels 
choked him. At last, as his opposite neighbour, 
the Austro-Hungarian diplomat, endeavoured to 
reach the mustard-pot with the tips of his shaky 
old fingers, covered with mittens, he passed it to 
him obligingly. “ Happy to serve you, Monsieur 
le baron,” for he had heard some one call him so. 

Unfortunately, poor M. de Stoltz, in spite of his 
shrewd and knowing air contracted in diplomatic 
juggling, had now lost both words and ideas, and 
was travelling among the mountains for the special 


Apparition on the Rigi-Kulm. 145 

purpose of recovering them. He opened his eyes 
wide upon that unknown face, and shut them again 
without a word. It would have taken ten old 
diplomats of his present intellectual force to have 
constructed in common a formula of thanks. 

At this fresh failure the Alpinist made a terrible 
grimace, and the abrupt manner in which he seized 
the bottle standing near him might have made one 
fear he was about to cleave the already cracked 
head of the diplomatist. Not so ! It was only to 
offer wine to his pretty neighbour, who did not 
hear him, being absorbed by a semi-whispered con- 
versation in a soft and lively foreign warble with 
two young men seated next to her. She bent to 
them, and grew animated. Little frizzles of hair 
were seen shining in the light against a dainty, 
transparent, rosy ear. . . Polish, Russian, Nor- 
wegian?. . from the North certainly; and a pretty 
song of those distant lands coming to his lips, the 
man of the South began tranquilly to hum : — 

0 coumtesso gento, 

Estelo dou Nord, 

Que la neu argento, 

Qu’ Amour friso en or . 1 

The whole table turned round; they thought 
him mad. He coloured, subsided into his plate, 
and did not issue again except to repulse vehe- 

1 O pretty countess. 

Light of the North, 

Which the snow silvers, 

And Love curls in gold. {Fred trie Mistral .) 

10 


146 Tartarin on the Alps . 

mently one of the sacred compote-dishes that was 
handed to him. 

“ Prunes ! again ! . . Never in my life ! ” 

This was too much. 

A grating of chairs was heard. The acade- 
mician, Lord Chipendale (?), the Bonn professor, 
and other notabilities rose, and left the room as if 
protesting. 

The Rices followed almost immediately, on see- 
ing the second compote-dish rejected as violently 
as the first. 

Neither Rice nor Prunes! . . then what? . . 

All withdrew ; and it was truly glacial, that silent 
defile of scornful noses and mouths with their 
corners disdainfully turned down at the luckless 
man, who was left alone in the vast gorgeous 
dining-room, engaged in sopping his bread in his 
wine after the fashion of his country, crushed 
beneath the weight of universal disdain. 

My friends, let us never despise any one. Con- 
tempt is the resource of parvenus, prigs, ugly folk, 
and fools ; it is the mask behind which nonentity 
shelters itself, and sometimes blackguardism ; it 
dispenses with mind, judgment, and good-will. All 
humpbacked persons are contemptuous; all 
crooked noses wrinkle with disdain when they see 
a straight one. 

He knew that, this worthy Alpinist. Having 
passed, by several years, his “ fortieth,” that land- 
ing on the fourth storey where man discovers and 
picks up the magic key which opens life to its 


Apparition on the Rigi-Kulm . 147 

recesses, and reveals its monotonous and deceptive 
labyrinth ; conscious, moreover, of his value, of the 
importance of his mission, and of the great name he 
bore, he cared nothing for the opinion of such 
persons as these. He knew that he need only 
name himself and cry out “ ’T is I. . . ” to change to 
grovelling respect those haughty lips; but he 
found his incognito amusing. 

He suffered only at not being able to talk, to 
make a noise, unbosom himself, press hands, lean 
familiarly on shoulders, and call men by their 
Christian names. That is what oppressed him on 
the Rigi-Kulm. 

Oh ! above all, not being able to speak. 

“ I shall have dyspepsia as sure as fate,” said the 
poor devil, wandering about the hotel and not 
knowing what to do with himself. 

He entered a cafe, vast and deserted as a church 
on a week day, called the waiter, “ My good 
friend,” and ordered “ a mocha without sugar, qut.” 
And as the waiter did not ask, “ Why no sugar? ” 
the Alpinist added quickly, “ ’ T is a habit I acquired 
in Africa, at the period of my great hunts.” 

He was about to recount them, but the waiter 
had fled on his phantom slippers to Lord Chip- 
endale, stranded, full length, upon a sofa and 
crying, in mournful tones: “ Tchempegne ! . . 
tchempegne ! . . ” The cork flew with its silly 
noise, and nothing more was heard save the gusts of 
wind in the monumental chimney and the hissing 
click of the snow against the panes. 

Very dismal too was the reading-room ; all the 


148 Tartarin on the Alps . 

journals in hand, hundreds of heads bent down 
around the long green tables beneath the reflectors. 
From time to time a yawn, a cough, the rustle of a 
turned leaf; and soaring high above the calm of 
this hall of study, erect and motionless, their backs 
to the stove, both solemn and both smelling 
equally musty, were the two pontiffs of official 
history, Astier-Rehu and Schwanthaler, whom a 
singular fatality had brought face to face on the 
summit of the Rigi, after thirty years of insults and 
of rending each other to shreds in explanatory 
notes referring to “ Schwanthaler, jackass,” “ vir 
ineptissimus , Astier-Rehu.” 

You can imagine the reception which the kindly 
Alpinist received on drawing up a chair for a bit 
of instructive conversation in that chimney corner. 
From the height of these two caryatides there fell 
upon him suddenly one of those currents of air of 
which he was so afraid. He rose, paced th'e hall, 
as much to warm himself as to recover self-confi- 
dence, and opened the bookcase. A few English 
novels lay scattered about in company with sev- 
eral heavy Bibles and tattered volumes of the 
Alpine Club. He took up one of the latter, and 
carried it off to read in bed, but was forced tp 
leave it at the door, the rules not allowing the 
transference of the library to the chambers. 

Then, still continuing to wander about, he 
opened the door of the billiard-room, where the 
Italian tenor, playing alone, was producing effects 
of torso and cuffs for the edification of their pretty 
neighbour, seated on a divan, between the two 


Apparition on the Rigi-Kulm. 149 

young men, to whom she was reading a letter. 
On the entrance of the Alpinist she stopped, and 
one of the young men rose, the taller, a sort of 
moujik, a dog-man, with hairy paws, and long, 
straight, shining black hair joining an unkempt 
beard. He made two steps in the direction of the 
new-comer, looked at him provocatively, and so 
fiercely that the worthy Alpinist, without demand- 
ing an explanation, made a prudent and judicious 
half-turn to the right. 

“ Difflremment , they are not affable, these North- 
erners,” he said aloud; and he shut the door 
noisily, to prove to that savage that he was not 
afraid of him. 

The salon remained as a last refuge; he went 
there. . . Coquin de sort ! ... The morgue, my 
good friends, the morgue of the Saint-Bernard 
where the monks expose the frozen bodies found 
benea'th the snows in the various attitudes in which 
congealing death has stiffened them, can alone 
describe that salon of the Rigi-Kulm. 

All those numbed, mute women, in groups upon 
the circular sofas, or isolated and fallen into chairs 
here and there ; all those misses, motionless be- 
neath the lamps on the round tables, still holding 
in their hands the book or the work they were em- 
ployed on when the cold congealed them. Among 
them were the daughters of the general, eight 
little Peruvians with saffron skins, their features 
convulsed, the vivid ribbons on their gowns con- 
trasting with the dead-leaf tones of English fash- 
ions ; poor little sunny-climes , easy to imagine as 


150 Tar tar in on the Alps . 

laughing and frolicking beneath their cocoa-trees, 
and now more distressing to behold than the rest 
in their glacial, mute condition. In the back- 
ground, before the piano, was the death-mask of 
the old diplomat, his mittened hands resting inert 
upon the keyboard, the yellowing tones of which 
were reflected on his face. 

Betrayed by his strength and his memory, lost 
in a polka of his own composition, beginning it 
again and again, unable to remember its conclu- 
sion, the unfortunate Stoltz had gone to sleep 
while playing, and with him all the ladies on the 
Rigi, nodding, as they slumbered, romantic curls, 
or those peculiar lace caps, in shape like the crust 
of a vol-au-vent, that English dames affect, and 
which seem to be part of the cant of travelling. 

The entrance of the Alpinist did not awaken 
them, and he himself had dropped upon a divan, 
overcome by such icy discouragement, when the 
sound of vigorous, joyous chords burst from the 
vestibule; where three “ musicos,” harp, flute, and 
violin, ambulating minstrels with pitiful faces, and 
long overcoats flapping their legs, who infest the 
Swiss hostelries, had just arrived with their instru- 
ments. 

At the very first notes our man sprang up as if 
galvanized. 

“ Zou ! bravo ! . . forward, music ! ” 

And off he went, opening the great doors, feting 
the musicians, soaking them with champagne, 
drunk himself without drinking a drop, solely with 
the music which brought him back to life. He 


Apparition on the Rigi-Kulm . 15 1 

mimicked the piston, he mimicked the harp, he 
snapped his fingers over his head, and rolled his 
eyes and danced his steps, to the utter stupefaction 
of the tourists running in from all sides at the 
racket. Then suddenly, as the exhilarated musicos 
struck up a Strauss waltz with the fury of true 
tziganes, the Alpinist, perceiving in the doorway 
the wife of Professor Schwanthaler, a rotund little 
Viennese with mischievous eyes, still youthful in 
spite of her powdered gray hair, he sprang to her, 
caught her by the waist, and whirled her into the 
room, crying out to the others : “ Come on ! come 
on ! let us waltz ! ” 

The impetus was given, the hotel thawed and 
twirled, carried off its centre. People danced in 
the vestibule, in the salon, round the long green 
table of the reading-room. ’T was that devil of a 
man who set fire to ice. He, however, danced no 
more, being out of breath at the end of a couple of 
turns; but he guided his ball, urged the musicians, 
coupled the dancers, cast into the arms of the 
Bonn professor an elderly Englishwoman, and into 
those of the austere Astier-Rehu the friskiest of 
the Peruvian damsels. Resistance was impossible. 
From that terrible Alpinist issued I know not what 
mysterious aura which lightened and buoyed up 
every one. And sou ! sou ! sou ! No more con- 
tempt and disdain. Neither Rice nor Prunes, 
only waltzers. Presently the madness spread ; 
it reached the upper storeys, and up through the 
well of the staircase could be seen to the sixth- 
floor landing the heavy and high-coloured skirts of 


152 Tartarin on the Alps . 

the Swiss maids on duty, twirling with the stiffness 
of automatons before a musical chalet. 

Ah ! the wind may blow without and shake the 
lamp-posts, make the telegraph wires groan, and 
whirl the snow in spirals across that desolate 
summit. Within all are warm, all are comforted, 
and remain so for that one night. 

“ Different men t, I must go to bed, myself," 
thought the worthy Alpinist, a prudent man, 
coming from a country where every one packs and 
unpacks himself rapidly. Laughing in his grizzled 
beard, he slipped away, covertly escaping Madame 
Schwanthaler, who was seeking to hook him again 
ever since that initial waltz. 

He took his key and his bedroom candle ; then, 
on the first landing, he paused a moment to enjoy 
his work and to look at the mass of congealed 
ones whom he had forced to thaw and amuse 
themselves. 

A Swiss maid approached him all breathless 
from the waltz, and said, presenting a pen and 
the hotel register: — 

“ Might I venture to ask mossil to be so good as 
to sign his name? ” 

He hesitated a moment. Should he, or should 
he not preserve his incognito? 

After all, what matter! Supposing that the 
news of his presence on the Rigi should reach 
down there , no one would know what he had come 
to do in Switzerland. And besides, it would be 
so droll to see, to-morrow morning, the stupor of 
those “ Inglichemans ” when they should learn the 


Apparition on the Rigi-Kulm. 153 

truth. . . For that Swiss girl, of course, would not 
hold her tongue. . . What surprise, what excite- 
ment throughout the hotel ! . . 

“ Was it really he? . . he? . . himself? . 

These reflections, rapid and vibrant, passed 
through his head like the notes of a violin in an 
orchestra. He took the pen, and with careless hand 
he signed, beneath Schwanthaler, Astier-Rehu, and 
other notabilities, the name that eclipsed them 
all, his name; then he went to his room, without 
so much as glancing round to see the effect, of 
which he was sure. 

Behind him the Swiss maid looked at the name : 

TARTARIN OF TARASCON, 
beneath which was added : 

P. C. A. 

She read it, that Bernese girl, and was not the 
least dazzled. She did not know what P. C. A. 
signified, nor had she ever heard of “ Dardarin.” 

Barbarian, Vai ! 


154 


Tar tar in on the Alps. 


II. 

Taras con, five minutes'* stop ! The Club of the Alpines . 
Explanation of P. C. A. Rabbits of warren and cabbage 
rabbits. This is my last will and testa?7ient. The Sirop 
de cadavre. First ascension. Tartarin takes out his 
spectacles. 

WHEN that name “Tarascon” sounds trumpet- 
like along the track of the Paris-Lyons-Mediter- 
ranean, in the limpid, vibrant blue of a Provencal 
sky, inquisitive heads are visible at all the doors 
of the express train, and from carriage to carriage 
the travellers say to each other: “Ah! here is 
Tarascon ! . . Now, for a look at Tarascon.” 

What they can see of it is, nevertheless, nothing 
more than a very ordinary, quiet, clean little town 
with towers, roofs, and a bridge across the Rhone. 
But the Tarasconese sun and its marvellous effects of 
mirage, so fruitful in surprises, inventions, delirious 
absurdities, this joyous little populace, not much 
larger than a chick-pea, which reflects and sums 
up in itself the instincts of the whole French 
South, lively, restless, gabbling, exaggerated, com- 
ical, impressionable — that is what the people 
on the express-train look out for as they pass, and 
it is that which has made the popularity of the 
place. 


Tar as con. Five Minutes Stop! 155 

In memorable pages, which modesty prevents 
him from mentioning more explicitly, the histor- 
iographer of Tarascon essayed, once upon a time, 
to depict the happy days of the little town, leading 
its club life, singing its romantic songs (each his 
own) and, for want of real game, organizing curious 
cap-hunts. Then, war having come and the dark 
times, Tarascon became known by its heroic 
defence, its torpedoed esplanade, the club and the 
Cafe de la Comedie, both made impregnable; all 
the inhabitants enrolled in guerilla companies, 
their breasts braided with death’s head and cross- 
bones, all beards grown, and such a display 
of battle-axes, boarding cutlasses, and American 
revolvers that the unfortunate inhabitants ended 
by frightening themselves and no longer daring to 
approach one another in the streets. 

Many years have passed since the war, many a 
worthless almanac has been put in the fire, but 
Tarascon has never forgotten; and, renouncing the 
futile amusements of other days, it thinks of noth- 
ing now but how to make blood and muscle for 
the service of future revenge. Societies for pistol- 
shooting and gymnastics, costumed and equipped, 
all having band and banners; armouries, boxing- 
gloves, single-sticks, list-shoes; foot races and 
flat-hand fights between persons in the best society; 
these things have taken the place of the former 
cap-hunts and the platonic cynegetical discussions 
in the shop of the gunsmith Costecalde. 

And finally the club, the old club itself, abjur- 
ing bouillotte and b^zique, is now transformed 


156 Tar tar in on the Alps . 

into a “ Club Alpin ” under the patronage of the 
famous Alpine Club of London, which has borne 
even to India the fame of its climbers. With this 
difference, that the Tarasconese, instead of expat- 
riating themselves on foreign summits, are content 
with those they have in hand, or rather underfoot, 
at the gates of their town. 

“The Alps of Tarascon? ” you ask. No; but 
the Alpines, that chain of mountainettes, redolent 
of thyme and lavender, not very dangerous, nor 
yet very high (five to six hundred feet above 
sea-level), which make an horizon of blue waves 
along the Provencal roads and are decorated by 
the local imagination with the fabulous and char- 
acteristic names of : Mount Terrible; The End of 
the World ; The Peak of the Giants , etc. 

’ Tis a pleasure to see, of a Sunday morning, 
the gaitered Tarasconese, pickaxe in hand, knap- 
sack and tent on their backs, starting off, bugles 
in advance, for ascensions, of which the Forum , the 
local journal, gives full account with a descriptive 
luxury and wealth of epithets — abysses, gulfs, 
terrifying gorges — as if the said ascension were 
among the Himalayas. You can well believe that 
from this exercise the aborigines have acquired 
fresh strength and the “ double muscles ” hereto- 
fore reserved to the only Tartarin, the good, the 
brave, the heroic Tartarin. 

If Tarascon epitomizes the South, Tartarin epit- 
omizes Tarascon. He is not only the first citizen 
of the town, he is its soul, its genius, he has all its 
finest whimseys. We know his former exploits, 


Tarascon , Five Minutes Stop ! 157 

his triumphs as a singer (0I1 ! that duet of “ Robert 
ie Diable ” in Bezuquet’s pharmacy !), and the 
amazing odyssey of his lion-hunts, from which he 
returned with that splendid camel, the last in 
Algeria, since deceased, laden with honours and 
preserved in skeleton at the town museum among 
other Tarasconese curiosities. 

Tartarin himself has not degenerated; teeth 
still good and eyes good, in spite of his fifties; 
still that amazing imagination which brings nearer 
and enlarges all objects with the power of a tele- 
scope. He remains the same man as he of whom 
the brave Commander Bravida used to say: 
“ He’s a lapin . . . ” 

Or, rather, two lapins ! For in Tartarin, as in 
all the Tarasconese, there is a warren race and a 
cabbage race, very clearly accentuated : the roving 
rabbit of the warren, adventurous, headlong; and 
the cabbage-rabbit, homekeeping, coddling, ner- 
vously afraid of fatigue, of draughts, and of any and 
all accidents that may lead to death. 

We know that this prudence did not prevent him 
from showing himself brave and even heroic on 
occasion ; but it is permissible to ask what he was 
doing on the Rigi (. Regina, Montiuni) at his age, 
when he had so dearly bought the right to rest 
and comfort. 

To that inquiry the infamous Costecalde can 
alone reply. 

Costecalde, gunsmith by trade, represents a 
type that is rather rare in Tarascon. Envy, base, 
malignant envy, is visible in the wicked curve of 


158 Tar tar in on the Alps . 

his thin lips, and a species of yellow bile, proceed* 
ing from his liver in puffs, suffuses his broad, 
clean-shaven, regular face, with its surface dented 
as if by a hammer, like an ancient coin of Tiberius 
or Caracalla. Envy with him is a disease, which 
he makes no attempt to hide, and, with the fine 
Tarasconese temperament that overlays everything, 
he sometimes says in speaking of his infirmity: 
“ You don’t know how that hurts me. . . ” 

Naturally the curse of Costecalde is Tartarin. 
So much fame for a single man ! He every- 
where ! always he ! And slowly, subterraneously, 
like a worm within the gilded wood of an idol, 
he saps from below for the last twenty years that 
triumphant renown, and gnaws it, and hollows 
it. When, in the evening, at the club, Tartarin 
relates his encounters with lions and his wander- 
ings in the great Sahara, Costecalde sits by with 
mute little laughs, and incredulous shakes of the 
head. 

“ But the skins, au mouain , Costecalde . . . those 
lions’ skins he sent us, which are there, in the 
salon of the club? . 

“ 7V7 pardi. . . Do you suppose there are no 
furriers in Algeria? . . ” 

“ But the marks of the balls, all round, in the 
heads? ” 

“ Et autremain , did n’t we ourselves in the days 
of the cap-hunts see ragged caps torn with bullets 
at the hatters’ for sale to clumsy shots? ” 

No doubt the long established fame of Tartarin as 
a slayer of wild beasts resisted these attacks ; but 


Tarascon , Five Minutes Stop! 159 

the Alpinist in himself was open to criticism, and 
Costecalde did not deprive himself of the oppor- 
tunity, being furious that a man should be elected 
as president of the “ Club of the Alpines ” whom 
age had visibly overweighted and whose liking, ac- 
quired in Algeria, for Turkish slippers and flowing 
garments predisposed to laziness. 

In fact, Tartarin seldom took part in the ascen- 
sions; he was satisfied to accompany them with 
votive wishes, and to read in full session, with 
rolling eyes, and intonations that turned the ladies 
pale, the tragic narratives of the expeditions. 

Costecalde, on the contrary, wiry, vigorous 
“ Cock-leg,” as they called him, was always the 
foremost climber; he had done the Alpines, one 
by one, planting on their summits inaccessible the 
banner of the Club, La Tarasqne> starred in silver. 
Nevertheless, he was only vice-president, V. P. C. 
A. But he manipulated the place so well that 
evidently, at the coming elections, Tartarin would 
be made to skip. 

Warned by his faithfuls — Bdzuquet the apothe- 
cary, Excourbanies, the brave Commander Bravida 
— the hero was at first possessed by black disgust, 
by that indignant rancour which ingratitude and 
injustice arouse in the noblest soul. He wanted 
to quit everything, to expatriate himself, to cross 
the bridge and go and live in Beaucaire, among 
the Volsci ; after that, he grew calmer. 

To quit his little house, his garden, his beloved 
habits, to renounce his chair as president of the 
Club of the Alpines, founded by himself, to resign 


160 Tartarin on the Alps . 

that majestic P. C. A. which adorned and distin- 
guished his cards, his letter-paper, and even the 
lining of his hat! Not possible, vl ! Suddenly 
there came into his head an electrifying idea. . . 

In a word, the exploits of Costecalde were 
limited to excursions among the Alpines. Why 
should not Tartarin, during the three months that 
still intervened before the elections, why should he 
not attempt some grandiose adventure? plant, 
for instance, the standard of the Club on the 
highest peak of Europe, the Jungfrau or the Mont 
Blanc? 

What triumph on his return ! what a slap in the 
face to Costecalde when the Forum should publish 
an account of the ascension ! Who would dare to 
dispute his presidency after that? 

Immediately he set to work; sent secretly to 
Paris for quantities of works on Alpine adventure: 
Whymper’s “ Scrambles,” Tyndall’s “ Glaciers,” 
the “ Mont-Blanc ” of Stephen d’Arve, reports of 
the Alpine Club, English and Swiss; cramming his 
head with a mass of mountaineering terms — chim- 
neys, couloirs, moulins, nev^s, seracs, moraines, 
rotures — without knowing very well what they 
meant. 

At night, his dreams were fearful with inter- 
minable slides and sudden falls into bottomless 
crevasses. Avalanches rolled him down, icy 
aretes caught his body on the descent ; and long 
after his waking and the chocolate he always took 
in bed, the agony and the oppression of that 
nightmare clung to him. But all this did not 


Taras con, Five Minutes Stop! 161 

hinder him, once afoot, from devoting his whole 
morning to the most laborious training exercises. 

Around Tarascon is a promenade planted with 
trees which, in the local dictionary, is called the 
“Tour de Ville.” Every Sunday afternoon, the 
Tarasconese, who, in spite of their imagination, 
are a people of routine, make the tour of their 
town, and always in the same direction. Tartarin 
now exercised himself by making it eight times, ten 
times, of a morning, and often reversed the way. 
He walked, his hands behind his back, with short 
mountain-steps, both slow and sure, till the shop- 
keepers, alarmed by this infraction of local habits, 
were lost in suppositions of all possible kinds. 

At home, in his exotic garden, he practised the 
art of leaping crevasses, by jumping over the basin 
in which a few gold-fish were swimming about 
among the water-weeds. On two occasions he 
fell in, and was forced to change his clothes. Such 
mishaps inspired him only the more, and, being 
subject to vertigo, he practised walking on the 
narrow masonry round the edge of the water, to 
the terror of his old servant-woman, who under- 
stood nothing of these performances. 

During this time, he ordered, in Avignon , from 
an excellent locksmith, crampons of the Whymper 
pattern, and a Kennedy ice-axe ; also he procured 
himself a reed-wick lamp, two impermeable cover- 
lets, and two hundred feet of rope of his own 
invention, woven with iron wire. 

The arrival of these different articles from Avi- 
gnon, the mysterious goings and comings which 
n 


1 62 Tar tar in on the Alps . 

their construction required, puzzled the Taras- 
conese much, and it was generally said about 
town : “ The president is preparing a stroke.” 

But what? Something grand, you may be sure, 
for, in the beautiful words of the brave and senten- 
tious Commander Bravida, retired captain of equip- 
ment, who never spoke except in apothegms: 
“ Eagles hunt no flies.” 

With his closest intimates Tartarin remained 
impenetrable. Only, at the sessions of the Club, 
they noticed the quivering of his voice and the 
lightning flash of his eyes whenever he addressed 
Costecalde — the indirect cause of this new expe- 
dition, the dangers and fatigues of which became 
more pronounced to his mind the nearer he 
approached it. The unfortunate man did not 
attempt to disguise them ; in fact he took so black 
a view of the matter that he thought it indispen- 
sable to set his affairs in order, to write those last 
wishes, the expression of which is so trying to the 
Tarasconese, lovers of life, that most of them die 
intestate. 

On a radiant morning in June, beneath a cloud- 
less arched and splendid sky, the door of his 
study open upon the neat little garden with its 
gravelled paths, where the exotic plants stretched 
forth their motionless lilac shadows, where the 
fountain tinkled its silvery note ’mid the merry 
shouts of the Savoyards, playing at marbles before 
the gate, behold Tartarin! in Turkish slippers, 
wide flannel under-garments, easy in body, his pipe 
at hand, reading aloud as he wrote the words: — 


Taras con. Five Minutes Stop! 163 

“ This is my last will and testament.” 

Ha ! one may have one’s heart in the right 
place and solidly hooked there, but these are cruel 
moments. Nevertheless, neither his hand nor his 
voice trembled while he distributed among his 
fellow-citizens all the ethnographical riches piled 
in his little home, carefully dusted and preserved 
in immaculate order. 

“To the Club of the Alpines, my baobab ( arbos 
gigantea), to stand on the chimney-piece of the hall 
of sessions ; ” 

To Bravida, his carbines, revolvers, hunting 
knives, Malay krishes, tomahawks, and other 
murderous weapons ; 

To Excourbanies, all his pipes, calumets, nar- 
ghiles, and pipelets for smoking kif and opium ; 

To Costecalde — yes, Costecalde himself had 
his legacy — the famous poisoned arrows (Do not 
touch). 

Perhaps beneath this gift was the secret hope 
that the traitor would touch and die ; but nothing 
of the kind was exhaled by the will, which closed 
with the following words, of a divine meekness : 

“ I beg my dear Alpinists not to forget their 
president. . . I wish them to forgive my enemy 
as I have forgiven him, although it is he who has 
caused my death. . .” 

Here Tartarin was forced to stop, blinded by 
a flood of tears. For a minute he beheld hirnself 
crushed, lying in fragments at the foot of a high 
mountain, his shapeless remains gathered up in a 
barrow, and brought back to Tarascon. Oh, the 


164 Tartarin on the Alps . 

power of that Provencal imagination ! he was 
present at his own funeral; he heard the lugubri- 
ous chants, and the talk above his grave : “ Poor 
Tartarin, plchbre !” and, mingling with the crowd 
of his faithful friends, he wept for himself. 

But immediately after, the sight of the sun 
streaming into his study and glittering on the 
weapons and pipes in their usual order, the song 
of that thread of a fountain in the middle of the 
garden recalled him to the actual state of things. 
Dijftremment , why die? Why go, even? Who 
obliged him? What foolish vanity ! Risk his life 
for a presidential chair and three letters ! . . 

’T was a passing weakness, and it lasted no 
longer than any other. At the end of five minutes 
the will was finished, signed, the flourish added, 
sealed with an enormous black seal, and the great 
man had concluded his last preparations for 
departure. 

Once more had the warren Tartarin triumphed 
over the cabbage Tartarin. It could be said of the 
Tarasconese hero, as was said of Turenne: “His 
body was not always willing to go into battle, but 
his will led him there in spite of himself.” 

The evening of that same day, as the last stroke 
of ten was sounding from the tower of the town- 
hall, the streets being already deserted, a man, 
after brusquely slamming a door, glided along 
through the darkened town, where nothing lighted 
the fronts of the houses, save the hanging-lamps 
of the streets and the pink and green bottles of 


Tar as con, Five Minutes' Stop! 165 

the pharmacy Bezuquet, which projected their 
reflections on the pavement, together with a sil- 
houette of the apothecary himself resting his 
elbows on his desk and sound asleep on the 
Codex; — a little nap, which he took every even- 
ing from nine to ten, to make himself, so he said, 
the fresher at night for those who might need his 
services. That, between ourselves, was a mere 
tarasconade, for no one ever waked him at night, 
in fact he himself had cut the bell-wire, in order 
that he might sleep more tranquilly. 

Suddenly Tartarin entered, loaded with rugs, 
carpet-bag in hand, and so pale, so discomposed, 
that the apothecary, with that fiery local imagi- 
nation from which the pharmacy was no preserva- 
tive, jumped to the conclusion of some alarming 
misadventure and was terrified. “ Unhappy man ! ” 
he cried, “what is it?., you are poisoned?.. 
Quick ! quick ! some ipeca. . . ” 

And he sprang forward, bustling among his 
bottles. To stop him, Tartarin was forced to 
catch him round the waist. “ Listen to me, 
que diable! ” and his voice grated with the vexation 
of an actor whose entrance has been made to 
miss fire. As soon as the apothecary was rendered 
motionless behind the counter by an iron wrist, 
Tartarin said in a low voice : — 

“ Are we alone, Bezuquet ? ” 

“ ! yes,” ejaculated the other, looking about 

in vague alarm . . . “ Pascalon has gone to bed. ” 
[ Pascalon was his pupil.] “ Mamma too ; why 
do you ask? ” 


1 66 Tartarin on the Alps . 

“ Shut the shutters,” commanded Tartarin, with- 
out replying; “ we might be seen from without.” 

B6zuquet obeyed, trembling. An old bachelor, 
living with his mother, whom he never quitted, 
he had all the gentleness and timidity of a girl, 
contrasting oddly with his swarthy skin, his hairy 
lips, his great hooked nose above a spreading 
moustache; in short, the head of an Algerine 
pirate before the conquest. These antitheses are 
frequent in Tarascon, where heads have too 
much character, Roman or Saracen, heads with 
the expression of models for a school of design, but 
quite out of place in bourgeois trades among the 
manners and customs of a little town. 

For instance, Excourbanies, who has all the 
air of a conquistador, companion of Pizarro, rolls 
flaming eyes in selling haberdashery to induce 
the purchase of two sous’ worth of thread. And 
Bezuquet, labelling liquorice and sirupus gummi, 
resembles an old sea-rover of the Barbary coast. 

When the shutters were put up and secured 
by iron bolts and transversal bars, “ Listen, Fer- 
dinand ...” said Tartarin, who was fond of 
calling people by their Christian names. And 
thereupon he unbosomed himself, emptied his 
heart full of bitterness at the ingratitude of his 
compatriots, related the manoeuvres of “ Cock- 
leg,” the trick about to be played upon him at 
the coming elections, and the manner in which he 
expected to parry the blow. 

Before all else, the matter must be kept very 
secret ; it must not be revealed until the moment 


Tar as con, Five Minutes Stop ! 167 

when success was assured, unless some unforeseen 
accident, one of those frightful catastrophes — 
“ Hey, Bezuquet ! don’t whistle in that way when 
I talk to you.” 

This was one of the apothecary’s ridiculous 
habits. Not talkative by nature (a negative 
quality seldom met with in Tarascon, and which 
won him this confidence of the president), his 
thick lips, always in the form of an O, had a 
habit of perpetually whistling that gave him an 
appearance of laughing in the nose of the world, 
even on the gravest occasions. 

So that, while the hero made allusion to his 
possible death, saying, as he laid upon the counter 
a large sealed envelope, “ This is my last will 
and testament, Bezuquet; it is you whom I have 
chosen as testamentary executor. . “ Hui . . . 

hui . . . hui ...” whistled the apothecary, carried 
away by his mania, while at heart he was deeply 
moved and fully conscious of the grandeur of 
his role. 

Then, the hour of departure being at hand, he 
desired to drink to the enterprise, “something good, 
qut? a glass of the elixir of Garus, hey?” After 
several closets had been opened and searched, he re- 
membered that mamma had the keys of the Garus. 
To get them it would be necessary to awaken her 
and tell who was there. The elixir was therefore 
changed to a glass of the sirop de Calabre , a 
summer drink, inoffensive and modest, which Bou- 
quet invented, advertising it in the Forum as fol- 
lows : Sirop ds Calabre , ten sous a bottle , including 


x68 Tartarin on the Alps . 

the glass {verve'). “ Sirop de Cadavre, including 
the worms (vers),” said that infernal Costecalde, 
who spat upon all success. But, after all, that 
horrid play upon words only served to swell the 
sale, and the Tarasconese to this day delight in 
their sirop de cadavre. 

Libations made and a few last words exchanged, 
they embraced, B^zuquet whistling as usual in 
his moustache, adown which rolled great tears. 

“Adieu, au mouain” . . . said Tartarin in a 
rough tone, feeling that he was about to weep 
himself, and as the shutter of the door had been 
lowered the hero was compelled to creep out of 
the pharmacy on his hands and knees. 

This was one of the trials of the journey now 
about to begin. 

Three days later he landed in Vitznau at the 
foot of the Rigi. As the mountain for his debut, 
the Rigi had attracted him by its low altitude 
(5900 feet, about ten times that of Mount Terrible, 
the highest of the Alpines) and also on account of 
the splendid panorama to be seen from the sum- 
mit — the Bernese Alps marshalled in line, all 
white and rosy, around the lakes, awaiting the mo- 
ment when the great ascensionist should cast his 
ice-axe upon one of them. 

Certain of being recognized on the way and 
perhaps followed — ’twas a foible of his to believe 
that throughout all France his fame was as great 
and popular as it was at Tarascon — he had made 
a great detour before entering Switzerland and 
did not don his accoutrements until after he had 


Tar as con , Five Minutes Stop! 169 

crossed the frontier. Luckily for him ; for never 
could his armament have been contained in one 
French railway-carriage. 

But, however convenient the Swiss compart- 
ments might be, the Alpinist, hampered with uten- 
sils to which he was not, as yet, accustomed, crushed 
toe-nails with his crampons, harpooned travellers 
who came in his way with the point of his alpen- 
stock, and wherever he went, in the stations, the 
steamers, and the hotel salons, he excited as much 
amazement as he did maledictions, avoidance, and 
angry looks, which he could not explain to him- 
self though his affectionate and communicative 
nature suffered from them. To complete his dis- 
comfort, the sky was always gray, with flocks of 
clouds and a driving rain. 

It rained at Bale, on the little white houses, 
washed and rewashed by the hands of a maid and 
the waters of heaven. It rained at Lucerne, on 
the quay where the trunks and boxes appeared to 
be saved, as it were, from shipwreck, and when he 
arrived at the station of Vitznau, on the shore of 
the lake of the Four-Cantons, the same deluge was 
descending on the verdant slopes of the Rigi, strad- 
dled by inky clouds and striped with torrents that 
leaped from rock to rock in cascades of misty 
sleet, bringing down as they came the loose stones 
and the pine-needles. Never had Tartarin seen so 
much water. 

He entered an inn and ordered a cafe au tail 
with honey and butter, the only really good things 
he had as yet tasted during his journey. Then, 


170 Tartarin on the Alps . 

reinvigorated, and his beard sticky with honey, 
cleaned on a corner of his napkin, he prepared to 
attempt his first ascension. 

“ Et autremainP he asked, as he shifted his 
knapsack, “ how long does it take to ascend the 
Rigi?” 

“ One hour, one hour and a quarter, monsieur; 
but make haste about it; the train is just starting.” 

“ A train upon the Rigi ! . . you are joking ! . . ” 

Through the leaded panes of the tavern window 
he was shown the train that was really starting. 
Two great covered carriages, windowless, pushed 
by a locomotive with a short, corpulent chimney, 
in shape like a saucepan, a monstrous insect, 
clinging to the mountain and clambering, breath- 
less up its vertiginous slopes. 

The two Tartarins, cabbage and warren, both, 
at the same instant, revolted at the thought of 
going up in that hideous mechanism. One of 
them thought it ridiculous to climb the Alps in a 
lift; as for the other, those aerial bridges on which 
the track was laid, with the prospect of a fall of 
4000 feet at the slightest derailment, inspired him 
with all sorts of lamentable reflections, justified by 
the little cemetery of Vitznau, the white tombs of 
which lay huddled together at the foot of the slope, 
like linen spread out to bleach in the yard of a 
wash-house. Evidently the cemetery is there by 
way of precaution, so that, in case of accident, 
the travellers may drop on the very spot. 

“ I ’ 11 go afoot, ” the valiant Tarasconese said to 
himself ; “ ’t will exercise me . . . sou J ” 


Taras con , Five Minutes Stop! 171 

And he started, wholly preoccupied with man- 
oeuvring his alpenstock in presence of the staff of 
the hotel, collected about the door and shouting 
directions to him about the path, to which he did 
not listen. He first followed an ascending road, 
paved with large irregular, pointed stones like a 
lane at the South, and bordered with wooden gut- 
ters to carry off the rains. 

To right and left were great orchards, fields of 
rank, lush grass crossed by the same wooden con- 
duits for irrigation through hollowed trunks of 
trees. All this made a constant rippling from top 
to bottom of the mountain, and every time that 
the ice-axe of the Alpinist became hooked as he 
walked along in the lower branches of an oak or a 
walnut-tree, his cap crackled as if beneath the 
nozzle of a watering-pot. 

“ Diou ! what a lot of water ! ” sighed the man 
of the South. But it was much worse when the 
pebbly path abruptly ceased and he was forced 
to puddle along in the torrent or jump from rock 
to rock to save his gaiters. Then a shower 
joined in, penetrating, steady, and seeming to get 
colder the higher he went. When he stopped to 
recover breath he could hear nothing else than 
a vast noise of waters in which he seemed to be 
sunk, and he saw, as he turned round, the clouds 
descending into the lake in delicate long filaments 
of spun glass through which the chalets of Vitznau 
shone like freshly varnished toys. 

Men and children passed him with lowered heads 
and backs bent beneath hods of white-wood, con- 


172 Tar tar in on the Alps . 

taining provisions for some villa or pension , the 
balconies of which could be distinguished on the 
slopes. “ Rigi-Kulm? ” asked Tartarin, to be sure 
he was heading in the right direction. But his 
extraordinary equipment, especially that knitted 
muffler which masked his face, cast terror along 
the way, and all whom he addressed only opened 
their eyes wide and hastened their steps without 
replying. 

Soon these encounters became rare. The last 
human being whom he saw was an old woman 
washing her linen in the hollowed trunk of a tree 
under the shelter of an enormous red umbrella, 
planted in the ground. 

“ Rigi-Kulm? ” asked the Alpinist. 

The old woman raised an idiotic, cadaverous 
face, with a goitre swaying upon her throat as 
large as the rustic bell of a Swiss cow. Then, 
after gazing at him for a long time, she was seized 
with inextinguishable laughter, which stretched her 
mouth from ear to ear, wrinkled up the corners of 
her little eyes, and every time she opened them the 
sight of Tartarin, planted before her with his ice- 
axe on his shoulder, redoubled her joy. 

“ Tron de lair!” growled the Tarasconese, 
“ lucky for her that she ’s a woman. . . ” Snorting 
with anger, he continued his way and lost it in a 
pine-wood, where his boots slipped on the oozing 
moss. 

Beyond this point the landscape changed. No 
more paths, or trees, or pastures. Gloomy, de- 
nuded slopes, great boulders of rock which he scaled 


Tar as con, Five Minutes Stop! 173 

on his knees for fear of falling; sloughs full of 
yellow mud, which he crossed slowly, feeling before 
him with his alpenstock and lifting his feet like a 
knife-grinder. At every moment he looked at the 
compass, hanging to his broad watch-ribbon ; but 
whether it were the altitude or the variations of the 
temperature, the needle seemed untrue. And how 
could he find his bearings in a thick yellow fog that 
hindered him from seeing ten steps about him — 
steps that were now, within a moment, covered with 
an icy glaze that made the ascent more difficult. 

Suddenly he stopped ; the ground whitened 
vaguely before him. . . Look out for your eyes ! . . 

He had come to the region of snows. . . 

Immediately he pulled out his spectacles, took 
them from their case, and settled them securely on 
his nose. The moment was a solemn one. Slightly 
agitated, yet proud all the same, it seemed to Tar- 
tarin that in one bound he had risen 3000 feet 
toward the summits and his greatest dangers. 

He now advanced with more precaution, dream- 
ing of crevasses and fissures such as the books tell 
of, and cursing in the depths of his heart those 
people at the inn who advised him to mount straight 
and take no guide. After all, perhaps he had 
mistaken the mountain ! More than six hours had 
he tramped, and the Rigi required only three. The 
wind blew, a chilling wind that whirled the snow in 
that crepuscular fog. 

Night was about to overtake him. Where find a 
hut? or even a projecting rock to shelter him? All 
of a sudden, he saw before his nose on the arid, 


174 Tartarin on the Alps . : 

naked plain a species of wooden chalet, bearing, 
on a long placard in gigantic type, these letters, 
which he deciphered with difficulty: PHO. . . 
TO . . . GRA . . . PHIE DU RI . . . GI KULM. 
At the same instant the vast hotel with its three 
hundred windows loomed up before him between 
the great lamp-posts, the globes of which were 
now being lighted in the fog. 


A 71 Alarm on the Rigi, 


17 5 


III. 

An alarm on the Rigi. “ Keep cool ! Keep cool/" The 
A ipine horn. What Tartarin saw, on awaking , in his look- 
ing-glass. Perplexity. A guide is ordered by telephone. 

“ Ques aco? . . Qui vive? ” cried Tartarin, ears 
alert and eyes straining hard into the darkness. 

Feet were running through the hotel, doors were 
slamming, breathless voices were crying: “Make 
haste ! make haste ! . . ” while without was ringing 
what seemed to be a trumpet-call, as flashes of flame 
illumined both panes and curtains. 

Fire ! . . 

At a bound he was out of bed, shod, clothed, and 
running headlong down the staircase, where the gas 
still burned and a rustling swarm of misses were 
descending, with hair put up in haste, and they 
themselves swathed in shawls and red woollen 
jackets, or anything else that came to hand as they 
jumped out of bed. 

Tartarin, to fortify himself and also to reassure 
the young ladies, cried out, as he rushed on, hust- 
ling everybody : “ Keep cool ! Keep cool !” in the 
voice of a gull, pallid, distraught, one of those voices 
that we hear in dreams sending chills down the back 
of the bravest man. Now, can you understand 
those young misses , who laughed as they looked at 


176 Tartarin on the Alps . 

him and seemed to think it very funny? Girls 
have no notion of danger, at that age ! . . 

Happily, the old diplomatist came along behind 
them, very cursorily clothed in a top-coat below 
which appeared his white drawers with trailing ends 
of tape-string. 

Here was a man, at last ! . . 

Tartarin ran to him waving his arms: “Ah! 
Monsieur le baron, what a disaster ! . . Do you 
know about it? . . Where is it?.. How did it 
take? . ” 

“Who? What?” stuttered the terrified baron, 
not understanding. 

“ Why, the fire. . . ” 

“ What fire? . . ” 

The poor man’s countenance was so inexpress- 
ibly vacant and stupid that Tartarin abandoned 
him and rushed away abruptly to “ organize 
help. . . ” 

“ Help ! ” repeated the baron, and after him four 
or five waiters, sound asleep on their feet in the 
antechamber, looked at one another completely 
bewildered and echoed, “ Help ! . . ” 

At the first step that Tartarin made out-of-doors 
he saw his error. Not the slightest conflagration ! 
Only savage cold, and pitchy darkness, scarcely 
lighted by the resinous torches that were being 
carried hither and thither, casting on the snow 
long, blood-coloured traces. 

On the steps of the portico, a performer on the 
Alpine horn was bellowing his modulated moan, 
that monotonous ranz des vaches on three notes, 


1 77 


An Alarm on the Rigi. 

with which the Rigi-Kulm is wont to waken the 
worshippers of the sun and announce to them the 
rising of their star. 

It is said that it shows itself, sometimes, on rising, 
at the extreme top of the mountain behind the hotel. 
To get his bearings, Tartarin had only to follow the 
long peal of the misses’ laughter which now went 
past him. But he walked more slowly, still full of 
sleep and his legs heavy with his six hours’ climb. 

“Is that you, Manilof? . .” said a clear voice 
from the darkness, the voice of a woman. “ Help 
me. . . I have lost my shoe.” 

He recognized at once the foreign warble of his 
pretty little neighbour at the dinner-table, whose 
delicate silhouette he now saw in the first pale 
gleam of the coming sun. 

“ It is not Manilof, mademoiselle, but if I can be 
useful to you. . 

She gave a little cry of surprise and alarm as she 
made a recoiling gesture that Tartarin did not per- 
ceive, having already stooped to feel about the 
short and crackling grass around them. 

“ Ti, pardi ! here it is ! ” he cried joyfully. He 
shook the dainty shoe which the snow had pow- 
dered, and putting a knee to earth, most gallantly 
in the snow and the dampness, he asked, for all 
reward, the honour of replacing it on Cinderella’s 
foot. 

She, more repellent than in the tale, replied with 
a very curt “ no ; ” and endeavoured, by hopping on 
one foot, to reinstate her silk stocking in its little 
bronze shoe ; but in that she could never have suc- 
12 


178 Tartarin on the Alps. 

ceeded without the help of the hero, who was 
greatly moved by feeling for an instant that deli- 
cate hand upon his shoulder. 

“You have good eyes,” she said, by way of 
thanks as they now walked side by side, and feel- 
ing their way. 

“ The habit of watching for game, mademoiselle.” 
“ Ah ! you are a sportsman ? ” 

She said it with an incredulous, satirical accent. 
Tartarin had only to name himself in order to 
convince her, but, like the bearers of all illustri- 
ous names, he preferred discretion, coquetry. So, 
wishing to graduate the surprise, he answered: — 

“ I am a sportsman, effectivemciin .” 

She continued in the same tone of irony: — 

“ And what game do you prefer to hunt? ” 

“ The great carnivora, wild beasts . . .” uttered 
Tartarin, thinking to dazzle her. 

“Do you find many on the Rigi?” 

Always gallant, and ready in reply, Tartarin was 
about to say that on the Rigi he had so far met 
none but gazelles, when his answer was suddenly 
cut short by the appearance of two shadows, who 
called out: — 

“ Sonia ! . . Sonia ! . .” 

“ I ’m coming,” she said, and turning to Tartarin, 
whose eyes, now accustomed to the darkness, could 
distinguish her pale and pretty face beneath her 
mantle, she added, this time seriously: — 

“You have undertaken a dangerous enterprise, 
my good man . . . take care you do not leave your 
bones here.” 


An Alarm on the Rigi . 179 

So saying, she instantly disappeared in the dark- 
ness with her companions. 

Later, the threatening intonation that empha- 
sized those words was fated to trouble the imagi- 
nation of the Southerner; but now, he was simply 
vexed at the term “ good man,” cast upon his 
elderly embonpoint, and also at the abrupt depart- 
ure of the young girl just at the moment when he 
was about to name himself, and enjoy her stupe- 
faction. 

He made a few steps in the direction the group 
had taken, hearing a confused murmur, with 
coughs and sneezes, of the clustering tourists wait- 
ing impatiently for the rising of the sun, the most 
vigorous among them having climbed to a little 
belvedere, the steps of which, wadded with snow, 
could be whitely distinguished in the vanishing 
darkness. 

A gleam was beginning to light the Orient, sa- 
luted by a fresh blast from the Alpine horn, and 
that “ Ah ! ! ” of relief, always heard in theatres 
when the third bell raises the curtain. 

Slight as a ray through a shutter, this gleam, 
nevertheless, enlarged the horizon, but, at the same 
moment a fog, opaque and yellow, rose from the 
valley, a steam that grew more thick, more pene- 
trating as the day advanced. ’T was a veil between 
the scene and the spectators. 

All hope was now renounced of the gigantic 
effects predicted in the guide-books. On the other 
hand, the heteroclite array of the dancers of the 
night before, torn from their slumbers, appeared 


180 Tartarin on the Alps . 

in fantastic and ridiculous outline like the shades 
of a magic lantern; shawls, rugs, and even bed- 
quilts wrapped around them. Under varied head- 
gear, nightcaps of silk or cotton, broad-brimmed 
female hats, turbans, fur caps with ear-pads, were 
haggard faces, swollen faces, heads of shipwrecked 
beings cast upon a desert island in mid-ocean, 
watching for a sail in the offing with staring eyes. 

But nothing — everlastingly nothing! 

Nevertheless, certain among them strove, in a 
gush of good-will, to distinguish the surrounding 
summits, and, on the top of the belvedere could 
be heard the clucking of the Peruvian family, 
pressing around a big devil, wrapped to his feet in 
a checked ulster, who was pointing out imperturb- 
ably, the invisible panorama of the Bernese Alps, 
naming in a loud voice the peaks that were lost in 
the fog. 

“You see on the left the Finsteraarhorn, thirteen 
thousand seven hundred and ninety-five feet high 
. . . the Schreckhorn, the Wetterhorn, the Monk, 
the Jungfrau, the elegant proportions of which I 
especially point out to these young ladies. . .” 

“ Be ! vt! there ’s one who does n’t lack cheek ! ” 
thought Tartarin; then, on reflection, he added: 
“ I know that voice, azi mouainB 

He recognized the accent, that accent of the 
South, distinguishable from afar like garlic; but, 
quite preoccupied in finding again his fair Un- 
known, he did not pause, and continued to inspect 
the groups — without result She must have re- 
entered the hotel, as they all did now, weary with 


An Alarm on the Rigi. 1 8 1 

standing about, shivering, to no purpose, so that 
presently no one remained on the cold and deso- 
late plateau of that gray dawn butTartarin and the 
Alpine horn-player, who continued to blow a mel- 
ancholy note through his huge instrument, like a 
dog baying the moon. 

He was a short old man, with a long beard, 
wearing a Tyrolese hat adorned with green woollen 
tassels that hung down upon his back and, in let- 
ters of gold, the words (common to all the hats 
and caps in the service of the hotel) Regina Mon - 
tium. Tartarin went up to give him a pourboire, 
as he had seen all the other tourists do. “ Let us 
go to bed again, my old friend,” he said, tapping 
him on the shoulder with Tarasconese familiarity. 
“ A fine humbug, qu£ ! the sunrise on the Rigi.” 

The old man continued to blow into his horn, 
concluding his ritornelle in three notes with a mute 
laugh that wrinkled the corners of his eyes and 
shook the green glands of his head-gear. 

Tartarin, in spite of all, did not regret his night. 
That meeting with the pretty blonde repaid him 
for his loss of sleep, for, though nigh upon fifty, 
he still had a warm heart, a romantic imagination, 
a glowing hearthstone of life. Returning to bed, 
and shutting his eyes to make himself go to sleep, 
he fancied he felt in his hand that dainty little 
shoe, and heard again the gentle call of the fair 
young girl: “ Is it you, Manilof? ” 

Sonia . . . what a pretty name ! . . She was cer- 
tainly Russian ; and those young men were trav- 
elling with her; friends of her brother, no doubt. 


1 82 Tarlarin on the Alps. 

Then all grew hazy ; the pretty face in its golden 
curls joined the other floating visions, — Rigi 
slopes, cascades like plumes of feathers, — and 
soon the heroic breathing of the great man, sono- 
rous and rhythmical, filled the little room and the 
greater part of the long corridor. . . 

The next morning, before descending at the first 
gong for breakfast, Tartarin was about to make 
sure that his beard was well brushed, and that he 
himself did not look too badly in his Alpine cos- 
tume, when, all of a sudden, he quivered. Before 
him, open, and gummed to his looking-glass by 
two wafers, was an anonymous letter, containing 
the following threats : — 

“ Devil of a Frenchman, your queer old clothes do 
not conceal you. You are forgiven once more for 
this attempt ; but if you cross our path again , 
beware ! ” 

Bewildered, he read this two or three times over 
without understanding it. Of whom, of what must 
he beware? How came that letter there? Evi- 
dently during his sleep ; for he did not see it on 
returning from his auroral promenade. He rang 
for the maid on duty; a fat, white face, all pitted 
with the small-pox, a perfect gruyere cheese, from 
which nothing intelligible could be drawn, except 
that she was of “ bon famille,” and never entered 
the rooms of the gentlemen unless they were 
there. 

“ A queer thing, au mouainf thought Tartarin, 
turning and returning the letter, and much im* 


An Alarm on the Rigi . 183 

pressed by it. For a moment the name of Coste- 
calde crossed his mind, — Costecalde, informed of 
his projects of ascension, and endeavouring to pre- 
vent them by manoeuvres and threats. On reflec- 
tion, this appeared to him unlikely, and he ended 
by persuading himself that the letter was a joke 
. . . perhaps those little misses who had laughed 
at him so heartily . . . they are so free, those 
English and American young girls ! 

The second breakfast gong sounded. He put 
the letter in his pocket: “After all, we ’ll soon 
see . . and the formidable grimace with which 
he accompanied that reflection showed the heroism 
of his soul. 

Fresh surprise when he sat down to table. In- 
stead of his pretty neighbour, “ whom Love had 
curled with gold,” he perceived the vulture throat 
of an old Englishwoman, whose long lappets swept 
the cloth. It was rumoured about him that the 
young lady and her companions had left the hotel 
by one of the early morning trains. 

“ *Cr£ nom! I ’m fooled . . .” exclaimed aloud 
the Italian tenor, who, the evening before, had so 
rudely signified to Tartarin that he could not speak 
French. He must have learned it in a single 
night ! The tenor rose, threw down his napkin, 
and hurried away, leaving the Southerner com- 
pletely nonplussed. 

Of all the guests of the night before, none 
now remained but himself. That is always so 
on the Rigi-Kulm ; no one stays there more than 
twenty-four hours. In other respects the scene 


184 Tartarin on the Alps . 

was invariably the same; the compote-dishes in 
files divided the factions. But on this particular 
morning the Rices triumphed by a great majority, 
reinforced by certain illustrious personages, and 
the Prunes did not, as they say, have it all their 
own way. 

Tartarin, without taking sides with one or the 
other, went up to his room before the dessert, 
buckled his bag, and asked for his bill. He had 
had enough of Regina Montium and its dreary 
table d’hote of deaf mutes. 

Abruptly recalled to his Alpine madness by the 
touch of his ice-axe, his crampons, and the rope 
in which he rewound himself, he burned to attack 
a real mountain, a summit deprived of a lift and a 
photographer. He hesitated between the Finster- 
aarhorn, as being the highest, and the Jungfrau, 
whose pretty name of virginal whiteness made him 
think more than once of the little Russian. 

Ruminating on these alternatives- while they 
made out his bill, he amused himself in the vast, 
lugubrious, silent hall of the hotel by looking at 
the coloured photographs hanging to the walls, 
representing glaciers, snowy slopes, famous and 
perilous mountain passes : here, were ascensionists 
in file, like ants on a quest, creeping along an icy 
arete sharply defined and blue ; farther on was a 
deep crevasse, with glaucous sides, over which was 
thrown a ladder, and a lady crossing it on her 
knees, with an abbe after her raising his cassock. 

The Alpinist of Tarascon, both hands on his 
ice-axe, had never, as yet, had an idea of such 


An Alarm on the Rigu 185 

difficulties; he would have to meet them, pas 

mouain ! . . 

Suddenly he paled fearfully. 

In a black frame, an engraving from the famous 
drawing of Gustave Dore, reproducing the catas- 
trophe on the Matterhorn, met his eye. Four 
human bodies on the flat of their backs or stom- 
achs were coming headlong down the almost per- 
pendicular slope of a nMy with extended arms and 
clutching hands, seeking the broken rope which 
held this string of lives, and only served to drag 
them down to death in the gulf where the mass 
was to fall pell-mell, with ropes, axes, veils, and all 
the gay outfit of Alpine ascension, grown suddenly 
tragic. 

“Awful!” cried Tartarin, speaking aloud in his 
horror. 

A very civil mattre d’hotel heard the exclama- 
tion, and thought best to reassure him. Accidents 
of that nature, he said, were becoming very rare: 
the essential thing was to commit no imprudence 
and, above all, to procure good guides. 

Tartarin asked if he could be told of one there, 
“ with confidence. . Not that he himself had any 
fear, but it was always best to have a sure man. 

The waiter reflected, with an important air, 
twirling his moustache. “With confidence?.. 
Ah! if monsieur had only spoken sooner; we 
had a man here this morning who was just the 
thing . . . the courier of that Peruvian family. . 

“ He understands the mountain? ” said Tartarin, 
with a knowing air. 


1 86 Tar tar in on the Alps . 

“ Oh, yes, monsieur, all the mountains, in 
Switzerland, Savoie, Tyrol, India, in fact, the whole 
world ; he has done them all, he knows them all, 
he can tell you all about them, and that’s some- 
thing! . . I think he might easily be induced. . . 
With a man like that a child could go anywhere 
without danger.” 

“Where is he? How could I find him?” 

“ At the Kaltbad, monsieur, preparing the 
rooms for his party. . . I could telephone to him.” 

A telephone ! on the Rigi ! 

That was the climax. But Tartarin could no 
longer be amazed. 

Five minutes later the man returned bringing an 
answer. 

The courier of the Peruvian party had just 
started for the Tellsplatte, where he would certainly 
pass the night. 

The Tellsplatte is a memorial chapel, to which 
pilgrimages are made in honour of William Tell. 
Some persons go there to see the mural pictures 
which a famous painter of Bale has lately executed 
in the chapel. . . 

As it only took by boat an hour or an hour and 
a half to reach the place, Tartarin did not hesitate. 
It would make him lose a day, but he owed it to 
himself to render that homage to William Tell, for 
whom he had always felt a peculiar predilection. 
And, besides, what a chance if he could there pick 
up this marvellous guide and induce him to do the 
Jungfrau with him. 

Forward, zou ! 


An Alarm on the Rigi, 187 

He paid his bill, in which the setting and the ris- 
ing sun were reckoned as extras, also the candles 
and the attendance. Then, still preceded by the 
rattle of his metals, which sowed surprise and 
terror on his way, he went to the railway station, 
because to descend the Rigi as he had ascended 
it, on foot, would have been lost time, and, really, 
it was doing too much honour to that very arti- 
ficial mountain. 


Tartarin on the Alps . 


1 88 


IV. 


On the boat. It rains. The Tarasconese hero salutes the 
Ashes. The truth about William Tell. Disillusion. Tar- 
tarin of Tarascon never existed. “ Til BompardT 

He had left the snows of the Rigi-Kulm ; down 
below, on the lake, he returned to rain, fine, close, 
misty, a vapour of water through which the moun- 
tains stumped themselves in, graduating in the dis- 
tance to the form of clouds. 

The “ Fohn ” whistled, raising white caps on the 
lake where the gulls, flying low, seemed borne 
upon the waves ; one might have thought one’s self 
on the open ocean. 

Tartarin recalled to mind his departure from the 
port of Marseilles, fifteen years earlier, when he 
started to hunt the lion — that spotless sky, daz- 
zling with silvery light, that sea so blue, blue 
as the water of dye-works, blown back by the 
mistral in sparkling white saline crystals, the 
bugles of the forts and the bells of all the steeples 
echoing joy, rapture, sun — the fairy world of a 
first journey. 

What a contrast to this black dripping wharf, 
almost deserted, on which were seen, through the 
mist as through a sheet of oiled paper, a few pas- 
sengers wrapped in ulsters and formless india- 


On the Boat. 


189 

rubber garments, and the helmsman standing 
motionless, muffled in his hooded cloak, his man- 
ner grave and sibylline, behind this notice printed 
in three languages : — 

“Forbidden to speak to the man at the wheel.” 

Very useless caution, for nobody spoke on board 
the “ YVinkelried,” neither on deck, nor in the 
first and second saloons crowded with lugubrious- 
looking passengers, sleeping, reading, yawning, 
pell-mell, with their smaller packages scattered on 
the seats — the sort of scene we imagine that a 
batch of exiles on the morning after a coup-d’Etat 
might present. 

From time to time the hoarse bellow of the 
steam-pipe announced the arrival of the boat at a 
stopping-place. A noise of steps, and of baggage 
dragged about the deck. The shore, looming 
through the fog, came nearer and showed its slopes 
of a sombre green, its villas shivering amid inun- 
dated groves, files of poplars flanking the muddy 
roads along which sumptuous hotels were formed 
in line with their names in letters of gold upon 
their facades, Hotel Meyer, Muller, du Lac, etc., 
where heads, bored with existence, made them- 
selves visible behind the streaming window-panes. 

The wharf was reached, the passengers disem- 
barked and went upward, all equally muddy, 
soaked, and silent. ’T was a coming and going 
of umbrellas and omnibuses, quickly vanishing. 
Then a great beating of the wheels, churning up the 
water with their paddles, and the shore retreated, 
becoming once more a misty landscape with its 


190 Tartarin on the Alps . 

pensions Meyer, Muller, du Lac, etc., the windows 
of which, opened for an instant, gave fluttering 
handkerchiefs to view from every floor, and out- 
stretched arms that seemed to say: “Mercy! 
pity ! take us, take us ... if you only knew! . . ” 

At times the “ Winkelried ” crossed on its way 
some other steamer with its name in black letters 
on its white paddle-box: “Germania.” . . “Guil- 
laume Tell . . The same lugubrious deck, the 
same refracting caoutchoucs, the same most la- 
mentable pleasure trip as that of the other phan- 
tom vessel going its different way, and the same 
heart-broken glances exchanged from deck to 
deck. 

And to say that those people travelled for 
enjoyment ! and that all those boarders in the 
Hotels du Lac, Meyer, and Muller were captives 
for pleasure ! 

Here, as on the Rigi-Kulm, the thing that above 
all suffocated Tartarin, agonized him, froze him, 
even more than the cold rain and the murky sky, 
was the utter impossibility of talking. True, he 
had again met faces that he knew — the member of 
the Jockey Club with his niece (h’m ! h’m ! . .), 
the academician Astier-Rehu, and the Bonn Pro- 
fessor Schwanthaler, those two implacable enemies 
condemned to live side by side for a month man- 
acled to the itinerary of a Cook’s Circular, and 
others. But none of these illustrious Prunes would 
recognize the Tarasconese Alpinist, although his 
mountain muffler, his metal utensils, his ropes in 
saltire, distinguished him from others, and marked 


On the Boat . 


191 

him in a manner that was quite peculiar. They 
all seemed ashamed of the night before, and the 
inexplicable impulse communicated to them by 
the fiery ardour of that fat man. 

Mme. Schwanthaler, alone, approached her part- 
ner, with the rosy, laughing face of a plump little 
fairy, and taking her skirt in her two fingers as if 
to suggest a minuet. “ Ballir. . . dantsir. . . very 
choli. . .” remarked the good lady. Was this a 
memory that she evoked, or a temptation that she 
offered? At any rate, as she did not let go of him, 
Tartarin, to escape her pertinacity, went up on 
deck, preferring to be soaked to the skin rather 
than be made ridiculous. 

And it rained ! . . and the sky was dirty ! . . To 
complete his gloom, a whole squad of the Salva- 
tion Army, who had come aboard at Beckenried, 
a dozen stout girls with stolid faces, in navy-blue 
gowns and Greenaway bonnets, were grouped 
under three enormous scarlet umbrellas, and were 
singing verses, accompanied on the accordion by 
a man, a sort of David-la-Gamme, tall and fleshless 
with crazy eyes. These sharp, flat, discordant 
voices, like the cry of gulls, rolled dragging, 
drawling through the rain and the black smoke of 
the engine which the wind beat down upon the 
deck. Never had Tartarin heard anything so 
lamentable. 

At Brunnen the squad landed, leaving the pockets 
of the other travellers swollen with pious little 
tracts; and almost immediately after the songs 
and the accordion of these poor larvae ceased, 


192 Tartarin on the Alps . 

the sky began to clear and patches of blue were 
seen. 

They now entered the lake of Uri, closed in and 
darkened by lofty, untrodden mountains, and the 
tourists pointed out to each other, on the right at 
the foot of the Seelisberg, the field of Grtitli, where 
Melchtal, Fiirst, and Stauffacher made oath to 
deliver their country. 

Tartarin, with much emotion, took off his cap, 
paying no attention to environing amazement, and 
waved it in the air three times, to do honour to 
the ashes of those heroes. A few of the passengers 
mistook his purpose, and politely returned his 
bow. 

The engine at last gave a hoarse roar, its echo 
repercussioning from cliff to cliff of the narrow 
space. The notice hung out on deck before each 
new landing-place (as they do at public balls to 
vary the country dances) announced the Tells- 
platte. 

They arrived. 

The chapel is situated just five minutes’ walk 
from the landing, at the edge of the lake, on the 
very rock to which William Tell sprang, during 
the tempest, from Gessler’s boat. It was to Tar- 
tarin a most delightful emotion to tread, as he 
followed the travellers of the Circular Cook along 
the lakeside, that historic soil, to recall and live 
again the principal episodes of the great drama 
which he knew as he did his own life. 

From his earliest years, William Tell had been 
his type. When, in the B^zuquet pharmacy, they 


On the Boat . 


193 


played the game of preference, each person writing 
secretly on folded slips the poet, the tree, the 
odour, the hero, the woman he preferred, one of 
the papers invariably ran thus : — 

“Tree preferred? .... the baobab. 

Odour? .... gunpowder. 

Writer? .... Fenimore Cooper. 

What I would prefer to be William Tell.” 

And every voice in the pharmacy cried out: 
“That’s Tartarin!” 

Imagine, therefore, how happy he was and how 
his heart was beating as he stood before that 
memorial chapel raised to a hero by the gratitude 
of a whole people. It seemed to him that William 
Tell in person, still drippiiig with the waters of the 
lake, his crossbow and his arrows in hand, was 
about to open the door to him. 

“ No entrance. . . I am at work. . . This is 
not the day. . .” cried a loud voice from within, 
made louder by the sonority of the vaulted roof. 

“Monsieur Astier-R6hu, of the French Acad- 
emy. . .” 

“ Herr Doctor Professor Schwanthaler. . .” 

“Tartarin of Tarascon. . .” 

In the arch above the portal, perched upon a 
scaffolding, appeared a half-length of the painter 
in working-blouse, palette in hand. 

“ My famulus will come down and open to you, 
messieurs,” he said with respectful intonations. 

“ I was sure of it, pardi ! ” thought Tartarin ; “ I 
had only to name myself.” 

u 


194 Tartarin on the Alps . 

However, he had the good taste to stand aside 
modestly, and only entered after all the others. 

The painter, superb fellow, with the gilded, 
ruddy head of an artist of the Renaissance, re- 
ceived his visitors on the wooden steps which 
led to the temporary staging put up for the 
purpose of painting the roof. The frescos, re- 
presenting the principal episodes in the life of 
William Tell, were finished, all but one, namely: 
the scene of the apple in the market-place of 
Altorf. On this he was now at work, and his 
young famulus , as he called him, feet and legs 
bare under a toga of the middle ages, and his 
hair archangelically arranged, was posing as the 
son of William Tell. 

All these archaic personages, red, green, yellow, 
blue, made taller than nature in narrow streets and 
under the posterns of the period, intended, of 
course, to be seen at a distance, impressed the 
spectators rather sadly. However, they were there 
to admire, and they admired. Besides, none of 
them knew anything. 

“ I consider that a fine characterization/’ said 
the pontifical Astier-Rehu, carpet-bag in hand. 

And Schwanthaler, a camp-stool under his arm, 
not willing to be behindhand, quoted two verses 
of Schiller, most of it remaining in his flowing 
beard. Then the ladies exclaimed, and for a 
time nothing was heard but: — 

“ Schon ! . . schon. . .” 

“ Yes . . . lovely. . .” 

“ Exquisite ! delicious ! . .” 


On the Boat . 


195 

One might have thought one’s self at a confec- 
tioner’s. 

Abruptly a voice broke forth, rending with the 
ring of a trumpet that composed silence. 

“ Badly shouldered, I tell you. . . That cross- 
bow is not in place. . .” 

Imagine the stupor of the painter in presence of 
this exorbitant Alpinist, who, alpenstock in hand 
and ice-axe on his shoulder, risking the annihila- 
tion of somebody at each of his many evolutions, 
was demonstrating to him by A + B that the 
motions of his William Tell were not correct. 

“ I know what I am talking about, ati mouain . . . 
I beg you to believe it. . 

“ Who are you ? ” 

“ Who am I ! ” exclaimed the Alpinist, now 
thoroughly vexed. . . So it was not to him that 
the door was opened ; and drawing himself up he 
said : “ Go ask my name of the panthers of the 
Zaccar, of the lions of Atlas . . . they will answer 
you, perhaps.” 

The company recoiled ; there was general alarm. 

“ But,” asked the painter, “ in what way is my 
action wrong?” 

“ Look at me, til ” 

Falling into position with a thud of his heels 
that made the planks beneath them smoke, Tar- 
tarin, shouldering his ice-axe like a crossbow, stood 
rigid. 

“ Superb ! He ’s right. . . Don’t stir. . .” 

Then to the famulus: “Quick! a block, char* 
coal ! . .” 


196 Tar tar in on the Alps . 

The fact is, the Tarasconese hero was something 
worth painting, — squat, round-shouldered, head 
bent forward, the muffler round his chin like a 
strap, and his flaming little eye taking aim at the 
terrified famulus . 

Imagination, O magic power! . . He thought 
himself on the marketplace of Altorf, in front of 
his own child, he, who had never had any; an 
arrow in his bow, another in his belt to pierce the 
heart of the tyrant. His conviction became so 
strong that it conveyed itself to others. 

“ ’ T is William Tell himself! . said the painter, 
crouched on a stool and driving his sketch with a 
feverish hand. “Ah! monsieur, why did I not 
know you earlier? What a model you would have 
been for me ! . .” 

“ Really ! then you see some resemblance? ” said 
Tartarin, much flattered, but keeping his pose. 

Yes, it was just so that the artist imagined his 
hero. 

“The head, too? ” 

“ Oh! the head, that’s no matter . . .” and the 
painter stepped back to look at his sketch. “Yes, 
a virile mask, energetic, just what I wanted — 
inasmuch as nobody knows anything about William 
Tell, who probably never existed.” 

Tartarin dropped the cross-bow from stupefac- 
tion. 

“ Outre! 1 . . Never existed ! . . What is that 
you are saying? ” 

1 “ Outre ” and “ boufre ” are Tarasconese oaths of mys- 
terious etymology. 


On the Boat . 


197 


“ Ask these gentlemen. . 

Astier-Rehu, solemn, his three chins in his 
white cravat, said : “ That is a Danish legend.” 

“ Icelandic. . . ” affirmed Schwanthaler, no less 
majestic. 

“ Saxo Grammaticus relates that a valiant archer 
named Tobe or Paltanoke . . .” 

“ Es ist in der Vilkinasaga geschrieben . . 

Both together : — 

was condemned by the dass der Islandische Ko- 
King of Denmark Harold nig Needing . . 
of the Blue Teeth . . 

With staring eyes and arms extended, neither 
looking at nor comprehending each other, they 
both talked at once, as if on a rostrum, in the 
doctoral, despotic tones of professors certain of 
never being refuted ; until, getting angry, they 
only shouted names: “Justinger of Berne!.. 
Jean of Winterthur! . 

Little by little, the discussion became general, 
excited, and furious among the visitors. Umbrellas, 
camp-stools, and valises were brandished; the 
unhappy artist, trembling for the safety of his 
scaffolding, went from one to another imploring 
peace. When the tempest had abated, he returned 
to his sketch and looked for his mysterious 
model, for him whose name the panthers of the 
Zaccar and the lions of Atlas could alone pro- 
nounce; but he was nowhere to be seen; the 
Alpinist had disappeared. 


198 Tartarin on the Alps. 

At that moment he was clambering with furious 
strides up a little path among beeches and birches 
that led to the Hotel Tellsplatte, where the courier 
of the Peruvian family was to pass the night; and 
under the shock of his deception he was talking 
to himself in a loud voice and ramming his 
alpenstock furiously into the sodden ground : — 

Never existed ! William Tell ! William Tell a 
myth ! And it was a painter charged with the 
duty of decorating the Tellsplatte who said that 
calmly. He hated him as if for a sacrilege ; he 
hated those learned men, and this denying, demol- 
ishing impious age, which respects nothing, neither 
fame nor grandeur — coquin de sort 7 

And so, two hundred, three hundred years hence, 
when TARTARIN was spoken of there would always 
be Astier-Rehus and Professor Schwanthalers to 
deny that he ever existed — a Provencal myth ! a 
Barbary legend ! . . He stopped, choking with 
indignation and his rapid climb, and seated himself 
on a rustic bench. 

From there he could see the lake between the 
branches, and the white walls of the chapel like a 
new mausoleum. A roaring of steam and the 
bustle of getting to the wharf announced the arri- 
val of fresh visitors. They collected on the 
bank, guide-books in hand, and then advanced 
with thoughtful gestures and extended arms, evi- 
dently relating the “ legend.” Suddenly, by an 
abrupt revulsion of ideas, the comicality of the 
whole thing struck him. 

He pictured to himself all historical Switzerland 


On the Boat . 


199 


living upon this imaginary hero; raising statues 
and chapels in his honour on the little squares of 
the little towns, and placing monuments in the 
museums of the great ones; organizing patri- 
otic fetes, to which everybody rushed, banners 
displayed, from all the cantons, with banquets, 
toasts, speeches, hurrahs, songs, and tears swelling 
all breasts, and this for a great patriot, whom 
everybody knew had never existed. 

Talk of Tarascon indeed ! There ’s a tarasconade 
for you, the like of which was never invented down 
there ! 

His good-humour quite restored, Tartarin in a 
few sturdy strides struck the highroad to Fluelen, 
at the side of which the Hotel Tellsplatte spreads 
out its long facade. While awaiting the dinner- 
bell the guests were walking about in front of a 
cascade over rock-work on the gullied road, where 
landaus were drawn up, their poles on the ground 
among puddles of water in which was reflected a 
copper-coloured sun. 

Tartarin inquired for his man. They told him 
he was dining. “ Then take me to him, zou! ” 
and this was said with such authority that in spite 
of the respectful repugnance shown to disturbing 
so important a personage, a maid-servant con- 
ducted the Alpinist through the whole hotel, 
where his advent created some amazement, to the 
invaluable courier who was dining alone in a little 
room that looked upon the court-yard. 

“ Monsieur,” said Tartarin as he entered, his ice 
axe on his shoulder, “excuse me if. . . ” 


200 


Tar tar in on the Alps . 

He stopped stupefied, and the courier, tall, lank, 
his napkin at his chin, in the savoury steam of a 
plateful of hot soup, let fall his spoon. 

“ Vi ! Monsieur Tartarin. . . ” 

“ Te ! Bompard.” 

It was Bompard, former manager of the Club, a 
good fellow, but afflicted with a fabulous imagi- 
nation which rendered him incapable of telling a 
word of truth, and had caused him to be nicknamed 
in Tarascon “The Impostor.” 

Called an impostor in Tarascon ! you can judge 
what he must have been. And this was the 
incomparable guide, the climber of the Alps, the 
Himalayas, the Mountains of the Moon. 

“ Oh ! now, then, I understand,” ejaculated 
Tartarin, rather nonplussed; but, even so, joyful to 
see a face from home and to hear once more that 
dear, delicious accent of the Cours. 

“ Diffir eminent, Monsieur Tartarin, you ’ll dine 
with me, quit ” 

Tartarin hastened to accept, delighted at the 
pleasure of sitting down at a private table oppo- 
site to a friend, without the very smallest litigious 
compote-dish between them, to be able to hobnob, 
to talk as he ate, and to eat good things, carefully 
cooked and fresh ; for couriers are admirably 
treated by innkeepers, and served apart with all 
the best wines and the extra dainties. 

Many were the an mouains , pas mouains , and 
diffe'rem merits . 

“ Then, my dear fellow, it was really you I heard 
last night, up there, on the platform? . . ” 


On the Boat 


201 


“ Hey ! parfaitemain . . . I was making those 
young ladies admire. . . Fine, is n’t it, sunrise on 
the Alps? ” 

“ Superb ! ” cried Tartarin, at first without convic- 
tion and merely to avoid contradicting him, but 
caught the next minute; and after that it was 
really bewildering to hear those two Tarasconese 
enthusiasts lauding the splendours they had found 
on the Rigi. It was Joanne capping Baedeker. 

Then, as the meal went on, the conversation 
became more intimate, full of confidences and 
effusive protestations, which brought real tears to 
their Provencal eyes, lively, brilliant eyes, but 
keeping always in their facile emotion a little 
corner of jest and satire. In that alone did the 
two friends resemble each other; for in person 
one was as lean, tanned, weatherbeaten, seamed 
with the wrinkles special to the grimaces of his 
profession, as the other was short, stocky, sleek- 
skinned, and sound-blooded. 

He had seen all, that poor Bompard, since his 
exodus from the Club. That insatiable imagi- 
nation of his which prevented him from ever stay- 
ing in one place had kept him wandering under so 
many suns, and through such diverse fortunes. 
He related his adventures, and counted up the fine 
occasions to enrich himself which had snapped, 
there ! in his fingers — such as his last invention 
for saving the war-budget the cost of boots and 
shoes. . . Do you know how? . . Oh ,monn Diou ! 
it is very simple ... by shoeing the feet of the 
soldiers.” 


202 


Tartarin on the Alps . 

“ Outre! ” cried Tartarin, horrified. 

Bompard continued very calmly, with his natural 
air of cold madness: — 

“ A great idea, was n’t it ? Eh ! bl ! at the 
ministry they did not even answer me. . . Ah ! 
my poor Monsieur Tartarin, I have had my bad 
moments, I have eaten the bread of poverty before 
I entered the service of the Company. . . ” 

“ Company ! what Company ? ” 

Bompard lowered his voice discreetly. 

“ Hush ! presently, not here. . . ” Then return- 
ing to his natural tones, “ Et auti'emain , you 
people at Tarascon, what are you all doing? You 
have n’t yet told me what brings you to our 
mountains ...” 

It was now for Tartarin to pour himself out. 
Without anger, but with that melancholy of de- 
clining years, that ennui which attacks as they 
grow elderly great artists, beautiful women, and all 
conquerors of peoples and hearts, he told of the 
defection of his compatriots, the plot laid against 
him to deprive him of the presidency, the decision 
he had come to to do some act of heroism, a great 
ascension, the Tarasconese banner borne higher 
than it had ever before been planted ; in short, to 
prove to the Alpinists of Tarascon that he was still 
worthy . . . still worthy of . . . Emotion overcame 
him, he was forced to keep silence . . . Then 
he added : — 

“ You know me, Gonzague ...” and nothing can 
ever render the effusion, the caressing charm with 
which he uttered that troubadouresque Christian 


On the Boat 


203 


name of the courier. It was like one way of 
pressing his hands, of coming nearer to his 
heart . . . “You know me, qu£ ! You know if I 
balked when the question came up of marching 
upon the lion; and during the war, when we 
organized together the defences of the Club ...” 

Bompard nodded his head with terrible empha- 
sis ; he thought he was there still. 

“ Well, my good fellow, what the lions, what the 
Krupp cannon could never do, the Alps have 
accomplished ... I am afraid.” 

“ Don’t say that, Tartarin ! ” 

“Why not?” said the hero, with great gentle- 
ness. . . “ I say it, because it is so. . . ” 

And tranquilly, without posing, he acknowledged 
the impression made upon him by Dore’s drawing 
of that catastrophe on the Matterhorn, which was 
ever before his eyes. He feared those perils, and 
being told of an extraordinary guide, capable of 
avoiding them, he resolved to seek him out and 
confide in him. 

Then, in a tone more natural, he added: “You 
have never been a guide, have you, Gonzague? ” 

“ ! yes,” replied Bompard, smiling. . . “ Only, 

I never did all that I related.” 

“ That’s understood,” assented Tartarin. 

And the other added in a whisper: — 

“ Let us go out on the road ; we can talk more 
freely there.” 

It was getting dark; a warm damp breeze was 
rolling up black clouds upon the sky, where the 
setting sun had left behind it a vague gray mist 


204 Tartarin on the Alps. 

They went along the shore in the direction of Flu- 
elen, crossing the mute shadows of hungry tourists 
returning to the hotel ; shadows themselves, and 
not speaking until they reached a tunnel through 
which the road is cut, opening at intervals to 
little terraces overhanging the lake. 

“ Let us stop here,” pealed forth the hollow 
voice of Bompard, which resounded under the 
vaulted roof like a cannon-shot. There, seated on 
the parapet, they contemplated that admirable 
view of the lake, the downward rush of the fir- 
trees and beeches pressing blackly together in 
the foreground, and farther on, the higher moun- 
tains with waving summits, and farther still, others 
of a bluish-gray confusion as of clouds, in the 
midst of which lay, though scarcely visible, the 
long white trail of a glacier, winding through 
the hollows and suddenly illumined with irised 
fire, yellow, red, and green. They were exhibit- 
ing the mountain with Bengal lights ! 

From Fluelen the rockets rose, scattering their 
multicoloured stars ; Venetian lanterns went and 
came in boats that remained invisible while bearing 
bands of music and pleasure-seekers. 

A fairylike decoration seen through the frame, 
cold and architectural, of the granite walls of the 
tunnel. 

“ What a queer country, pas monain, this 
Switzerland ...” cried Tartarin. 

Bompard burst out laughing. 

“ Ah ! vat, Switzerland ! . . In the first place, 
there is no Switzerland.” 


Confidences in a Tunnel. 


205 


/ 


V. 


Confidences in a tunnel. 

u Switzerland, in our day, vd! Monsieur Tar- 
tarin, is nothing more than a vast Kursaal, open 
from June to September, a panoramic casino, 
where people come from all four quarters of the 
globe to amuse themselves, and which is manipula- 
ted and managed by a Company richissime by 
hundreds of thousands of millions, which has 
its offices in London and Geneva. It costs money, 
you may be sure, to lease and brush up and trick 
out all this territory, lakes, forests, mountains, 
cascades, and to keep a whole people of employes, 
supernumeraries, and what not, and set up miracu- 
lous hotels on the highest summits, with gas, 
telegraphs, telephones ! . . ” 

“ That, at least, is true,” said Tartarin, thinking 
aloud, and remembering the Rigi. 

“True! . . But you have seen nothing yet. . . 
Go on through the country and you ’ll not .find 
one corner that is n’t engineered and machine- 
worked like the under stage of the Opera, — 
cascades lighted a giorno, turnstiles at the entrance 
to the glaciers, and loads of railways, hydraulic 
and funicular, for ascensions. To be sure, the 


206 


Tar tar in on the Alps . 

Company, in view of its clients the English and 
American climbers, keeps up on the noted 
mountains, Jungfrau, Monk, Finsteraarhorn, an 
appearance of danger and desolation, though 
in reality there is no more risk there than else- 
where . . .” 

“ But the crevasses, my good fellow, those 
horrible crevasses . . . Suppose one falls into 
them? ” 

“ You fall on snow, Monsieur Tartarin, and you 
don’t hurt yourself, and there is always at the 
bottom a porter, a hunter, at any rate some one, 
who picks you up, shakes and brushes you, and 
asks graciously : ‘ Has monsieur any baggage? ’ ” 

“ What stuff are you telling me now, Gonzague ? ” 

Bompard redoubled in gravity. 

“ The keeping up of those crevasses is one 
of the heaviest expenses of the Company.” 

Silence fell for a moment under the tunnel, 
the surroundings of which were quieting down. 
No more varied fireworks, Bengal lights, or boats 
on the water ; but the moon had risen and made 
another conventional landscape, bluish, liquides- 
cent, with masses of impenetrable shadow. . . 

Tartarin hesitated to believe his companion on 
his word. Nevertheless, he reflected on the 
extraordinary things he had seen in four days — 
the sun on the Rigi, the farce of William Tell — 
and Bompard’s inventions seemed to him all 
the more probable because in every Tarasconese 
the braggart is leashed with a gull. 

" Differ eminent , my good friend, how do you 


Confidences in a Tunnel ' 207 

explain certain awful catastrophes . . . that of the 
Matterhorn, for instance? . .” 

“ It is sixteen years since that happened ; the 
Company was not then constituted, Monsieur 
Tartarin.” 

“ But last year, the accident on the Wetterhorn, 
two guides buried with their travellers ! . . ” 

“ Must, sometimes, //, pardi! . . you under- 
stand . . . whets the Alpinists . . . The English 
won’t come to mountains now where heads are 
not broke . . . The Wetterhorn had been running 
down for some time, but after that little item in 
the papers the receipts went up at once.” 

“Then the two guides? . . ” 

“They are just as safe as the travellers; only 
they are kept out of sight, supported in foreign 
parts, for six months ... A puff like that costs 
dear, but the Company is rich enough to afford it.” 

“ Listen to me, Gonzague. . . ” 

Tartarin had risen, one hand on Bompard’s 
shoulder. 

“ You would not wish to have any misfortune 
happen to me, qu£? . . Well, then ! speak to me 
frankly . . . you know my capacities as an Alpinist; 
they are moderate.” 

“ Very moderate, that ’s true.” 

“ Do you think, nevertheless, that I could, with- 
out too much danger, undertake the ascension of 
the Jungfrau ? ” 

“ I ’ll answer for it, my head in the fire, Mon- 
sieur Tartarin. . . You have only to trust to your 
guide, vt ! ” 


208 Tartarin on the Alps . 

“ And if I turn giddy?” 

“Shut your eyes.” 

“ And if I slip? ” 

“ Let yourself go . . . just as they do on the 
stage . . . sort of trap-doors . . . there ’s no risk. . .” 

“ Ah ! if I could have you there to tell me all 
that, to keep repeating it to me . . . Look here, my 
good fellow, make an effort, and come with me.” 

Bompard desired nothing better, pecaire ! but 
he had those Peruvians on his hands for the rest 
of the season ; and, replying to his old friend, who 
expressed surprise at seeing him accept the func- 
tions of a courier, a subaltern, — 

“I couldn’t help myself, Monsieur Tartarin,” 
he said. “ It is in our engagement. The Com- 
pany has the right to employ us as it pleases.” 

On which he began to count upon his fingers 
his varied avatars during the last three years . . . 
guide in the Oberland, performer on the Alpine 
horn, chamois-hunter, veteran soldier of Charles 
X., Protestant pastor on the heights . . . 

“ Qnh aco?” demanded Tartarin, astonished. 

“ Bl ! yes,” replied the other, composedly. 
“ When you travel in German Switzerland you will 
see pastors preaching on giddy heights, standing 
on rocks or rustic pulpits of the trunks of trees. 
A few shepherds and cheese-makers, their leather 
caps in their hands, and women with their heads 
dressed up in the costume of the canton group 
themselves about in picturesque attitudes; the 
scenery is pretty, the pastures green, or the har- 
vest just over, cascades to the road, and flocks 


209 


Confidences in a Tunnel ’ 

with their bells ringing every note on the moun- 
tain. All that, vl! that ’s decorative, suggestive. 
Only, none but the employes of the Company, 
guides, pastors, couriers, hotel-keepers are in the 
secret, and it is their interest not to let it get wind, 
for fear of startling the clients.” 

The Alpinist was dumfounded, silent — in him 
the acme of stupefaction. In his heart, whatever 
doubt he may have had as to Bompard’s veracity, 
he felt himself comforted and calmed as to Alpine 
ascensions, and presently the conversation grew 
joyous. The two friends talked of Tarascon, of 
their good, hearty laughs in the olden time when 
both were younger. 

“Apropos of gaUjade [jokes],” said Tartarin, 
suddenly, “ they played me a fine one on the Rigi- 
Kulm. . . Just imagine that this morning . . . ” 
and he told of the letter gummed to his glass, 
reciting it with emphasis: “‘Devil of a French- 
man’ ... A hoax, of course, que f” 

“May be . . . who knows? . said Bompard, 
seeming to take the matter more seriously. He 
asked if Tartarin during his stay on the Rigi had 
relations with any one, and whether he had n’t said 
a word too much. 

“Ha! vat ! a word too much! as if one even 
opened one’s mouth among those English and 
Germans, mute as carp under pretence of good 
manners ! ” 

On reflection, however, he did remember having 
clinched a matter, and sharply too ! with a species 
of Cossack, a certain Mi . . . Milanof. 

14 


210 


Tar tar in on the Alps . 

“ Manilof,” corrected Bompard. 

“Do you know him? . . Between you and me, 
I think that Manilof had a spite against me about 
a little Russian girl. . . ” 

“Yes, Sonia. . . ” murmured Bompard. 

“Do you know her too? Ah! my friend, a 
pearl ! a pretty little gray partridge ! ” 

“ Sonia Wassilief. . . It was she who killed 
with one shot of her revolver in the open that 
General Felianine, the president of the Council of 
War which condemned her brother to perpetual 
exile.” 

Sonia an assassin? that child, that little blond 
fairy ! . . Tartarin could not believe it. But 
Bompard gave precise particulars and details of 
the affair — which, indeed, is very well known. 
Sonia had lived for the last two years in Zurich, 
where her brother Boris, having escaped from 
Siberia, joined her, his lungs gone; and during the 
summers she took him for better air to the moun- 
tains. Bompard had often met them, attended by 
friends who were all exiles, conspirators. The 
Wassiliefs, very intelligent, very energetic, and 
still possessed of some fortune, were at the head 
of the Nihilist party, with Bolibine, the man who 
murdered the prefect of police, and this very 
Manilof, who blew up the Winter Palace last year. 

“ Boufre !” exclaimed Tartarin, “one meets with 
queer neighbours on the Rigi.” 

But here’s another thing. Bompard took it into 
his head that Tartarin’s letter came from these 
young people; it was just like their Nihilist pro- 


21 1 


Confidences in a Tunnel \ 

ceedings. The czar, every morning, found warn- 
ings in his study, under his napkin. . . 

“ But,” said Tartarin, turning pale, “ why such 
threats? What have I done to them ? ” 

Bompard thought they must have taken him for 
a spy. 

“ A spy ! I ! 

“ Bi l yes.” In all the Nihilist centres, at Zurich, 
Lausanne, Geneva, Russia maintained at great 
cost, a numerous body of spies ; in fact, for some 
time past she had had in her service the former 
chief of the French Imperial police, with a dozen 
Corsicans, who followed and watched all Russian 
exiles, and took countless disguises in order to 
detect them. The costume of the Alpinist, his 
spectacles, his accent, were quite enough to con- 
found him in their minds with those agents. 

“ Coquin de sort! now I think of it,” said Tar- 
tarin, “ they had at their heels the whole time a 
rascally Italian tenor . . . undoubtedly a spy. . . 
Differ eminent, what must I do?” 

“ Above all things, never put yourself in the way 
of those people again ; now that they have warned 
you they will do you harm. . . ” 

“ Ha ! vat! harm ! . . The first one that comes 
near me I shall cleave his head with my ice-axe.” 

And in the gloom of the tunnel the eyes of the 
Tarasconese hero glared. But Bompard, less con- 
fident than he, knew well that the hatred of Nihilists 
is terrible; it attacks from below, it undermines, 
and plots. It is all very well to be a lapin like the 
president, but you had better beware of that inn 


212 


Tartarin on the Alps . 

bed you sleep in, and the chair you sit upon, and 
the rail of the steamboat, which will give way sud- 
denly and drop you to death. And think of the 
cooking-dishes prepared, the glass rubbed over 
with invisible poison ! 

“ Beware of the kirsch in your flask, and the 
frothing milk that cow-man in sabots brings you. 
They stop at nothing, I tell you.” 

“If so, what’s to be done! I’m doomed!” 
groaned Tartarin; then, grasping the hand of his 
companion : — 

“ Advise me, Gonzague.” 

After a moment’s reflection, Bompard traced 
out to him a programme. To leave the next day, 
early, cross the lake and the Briinig pass, and sleep 
at Interlaken. The next day, to Grindelwald and 
the Little Scheideck. And the day after, the 
JUNGFRAU ! After that, home to Tarascon, with- 
out losing an hour, or looking back. 

“ I ’ll start to-morrow, Gonzague . . .” declared 
the hero, in a virile voice, with a look of terror at 
the mysterious horizon, now dim in the darkness, 
and at the lake which seemed to him to harbour 
all treachery beneath the glassy calm of its pale 
reflections. 


The Briinig Pass . 


213 


VI. 

The Briinig pass. Tartarin falls into the hands of 
Nihilists. Disappearance of an Italian tenor and a rope 
made at Avignon. Fresh exploits of the cap-sportsman. 
Pan / pan / 

“ Get in ! get in ! ” 

“But how the devil, qud ! am I to get in ? the 
places are full . . . they won’t make room for me.” 

This was said at the extreme end of the lake of 
the Four Cantons, on that shore at Alpnach, damp 
and soggy as a delta, where the post-carriages wait 
in line to convey tourists leaving the boat to cross 
the Briinig. 

A fine rain like needle-points had been falling 
since morning; and the worthy Tartarin, hampered 
by his armament, hustled by the porters and the 
custom-house officials, ran from carriage to car- 
riage, sonorous and lumbering as that orchestra- 
man one sees at fairs, whose every movement sets 
a-going triangles, big drums, Chinese bells, and 
cymbals. At all the doors the same cry of terror, 
the same crabbed “Full! ” growled in all dialects, 
the same swelling-out of bodies and garments 
to take as much room as possible and prevent 
the entrance of so dangerous and resounding a 
companion. 


214 Tartarin on the Alps . 

The unfortunate Alpinist puffed, sweated, and 
replied with “ Coqain de bon sort !” and despair- 
ing gestures to the impatient clamour of the con- 
voy: “ En route!.. All right!.. Andiamo ! 
. . Vorwarts ! . .” The horses pawed, the drivers 
swore. Finally, the manager of the post-route, a 
tall, ruddy fellow in a tunic and flat cap, interfered 
himself, and opening forcibly the door of a landau, 
the top of which was half up, he pushed in Tar- 
tarin, hoisting him like a bundle, and then stood, 
majestically, with outstretched hand for his trink - 
geld. 

Humiliated, furious with the people in the car- 
riage who were forced to accept him maim militari , 
Tartarin affected not to look at them, rammed his 
porte-monnaie back into his pocket, wedged his 
ice-axe on one side of him with ill-humoured mo- 
tions and an air of determined brutality, as if he 
were a passenger by the Dover steamer landing at 
Calais. 

“ Good-morning, monsieur,” said a gentle voice 
he had heard already. 

He raised his eyes, and sat horrified, terrified 
before the pretty, round and rosy face of Sonia, 
seated directly in front of him, beneath the hood of 
the landau, which also sheltered a tall young man, 
wrapped in shawls and rugs, of whom nothing 
could be seen but a forehead of livid paleness and 
a few thin meshes o'f hair, golden like the rim of 
his near-sighted spectacles. A third person, whom 
Tartarin knew but too well, accompanied them, — 
Manilof, the incendiary of the Winter Palace. 


215 


The Brunig Pass . 

Sonia, Manilof, what a mouse-trap ! 

This was the moment when they meant to ac- 
complish their threat, on that Brunig pass, so 
cra ggy, so surrounded with abysses. And the 
hero, by one of those flashes of horror which re- 
veal the depths of danger, beheld himself stretched 
on the rocks of a ravine, or swinging from the 
topmost branches of an oak. Fly ! yes, but where, 
how? The vehicles had started in file at the sound 
of a trumpet, a crowd of little ragamuffins were 
clambering at the doors with bunches of edelweiss. 
Tartarin, maddened, had a mind to begin the attack 
by cleaving the head of the Cossack beside him 
with his alpenstock ; then, on reflection, he felt it 
was more prudent to refrain. Evidently, these 
people would not attempt their scheme till farther 
on, in regions uninhabited, and before that, there 
might come means of getting out. Besides, their 
intentions no longer seemed to him quite so malev- 
olent. Sonia smiled gently upon him from her 
pretty turquoise eyes, the pale young man looked 
pleasantly at him, and Manilof, visibly milder, 
moved obligingly aside and helped him to put his 
bag between them. Had they discovered their 
mistake by reading on the register of the Rigi- 
Kulm the illustrious name of Tartarin? . . He 
wished to make sure, and, familiarly, good- 
humouredly, he began : — 

“ Enchanted with this meeting, beautiful young 
lady . . . only, permit me to introduce myself . . . 
you are ignorant with whom you have to do, ! 
whereas, I am perfectly aware who you are.” 


2l6 


Tartarin on the Alps . 

“ Hush ! ” said the little Sonia, still smiling, but 
pointing with her gloved finger to the seat beside 
the driver, where sat the tenor with his sleeve- 
buttons, and another young Russian, sheltering 
themselves under the same umbrella, and laughing 
and talking in Italian. 

Between the police and the Nihilists, Tartarin 
did not hesitate. 

“ Do you know that man, au monain ? ” he said 
in a low voice, putting his head quite close to 
Sonia’s fresh cheeks, and seeing himself in her 
clear eyes, which suddenly turned hard and savage 
as she answered “ yes,” with a snap of their lids. 

The hero shuddered, but as one shudders at the 
theatre, with that delightful creeping of the epi- 
dermis which takes you when the action becomes 
Corsican, and you settle yourself in your seat to 
see and to listen more attentively. Personally out 
of the affair, delivered from the mortal terrors 
which had haunted him all night and prevented 
him from swallowing his usual Swiss coffee, honey, 
and butter, he breathed with free lungs, thought 
life good, and this little Russian irresistibly pleas- 
ing in her travelling hat, her jersey close to the 
throat, tight to the arms, and moulding her slender 
figure of perfect elegance. And such a child ! 
Child in the candour of her laugh, in the down 
upon her cheeks, in the pretty grace with which 
she spread her shawl upon the knees of her poor 
brother. “Are you comfortable?..” “You are 
not cold?” How could any one suppose that 
little hand, so delicate beneath its chamois glove, 


The Brunig Pass . 217 

had had the physical force and the moral courage 
to kill a man? 

Nor did the others of the party seem ferocious: 
all had the same ingenuous laugh, rather con- 
strained and sad on the drawn lips of the poor 
invalid, and noisy in Manilof, who, very young 
behind his bushy beard, gave way to explosions 
of mirth like a schoolboy in his holidays, bursts of 
a gayety that was really exuberant. 

The third companion, whom they called Boli- 
bine, and who talked on the box with the tenor, 
amused himself much and was constantly turning 
back to translate to his friends the Italian’s adven- 
tures, his successes at the Petersburg Opera, his 
bonnes fortunes , the sleeve-buttons the ladies had 
subscribed to present to him on his departure, ex- 
traordinary buttons, with three notes of music en- 
graved thereon, la do r£ (l’adore), which pro- 
fessional pun, repeated in the landau, caused such 
delight, the tenor himself swelling up with pride 
and twirling his moustache with so silly and con- 
quering a look at Sonia, that Tartarin began to 
ask himself whether, after all, they were not mere 
tourists, and he a genuine tenor. 

Meantime the carriages, going at a good pace, 
rolled over bridges, skirted little lakes and flowery 
meads, and fine vineyards running with water and 
deserted ; for it was Sunday, and all the peasants 
whom they met wore their gala costumes, the 
women with long braids of hair hanging down their 
backs and silver chainlets. They began at last to 
mount the road in zigzags among forests of oak 


2l8 


Tartarin on the Alps . 

and beech ; little by little the marvellous horizon 
displayed itself on the left; at each turn of the 
zigzag, rivers, valleys with their spires pointing 
upward came into view, and far away in the dis- 
tance, the hoary head of the Finsteraarhorn, whiten- 
ing beneath an invisible sun. 

Soon the road became gloomy, the aspect sav- 
age. On one side, heavy shadows, a chaos of 
trees, twisted and gnarled on a steep slope, down 
which foamed a torrent noisily ; to right, an enor- 
mous rock overhanging the road and bristling 
with branches that sprouted from its fissures. 

They laughed no more in the landau ; but they 
all admired, raising their heads and trying to see 
the summit of this tunnel of granite. 

“ The forests of Atlas S . . I seem to see them 
again ...” said Tartarin, gravely, and then, as the 
remark passed unnoticed, he added : “ Without 
the lion’s roar, however.” 

“ You have heard it, monsieur?” asked Sonia. 

Heard the lion, he ! . . Then, with an indul- 
gent smile : “ I am Tartarin of Tarascon, made- 
moiselle. . .” 

And just see what such barbarians are ! He might 
have said, “My name is Dupont; ” it would have 
been exactly the same thing to them. They were 
ignorant of the name of Tartarin ! 

Nevertheless, he was not angry, and he answered 
the young lady, who wished to know if the lion’s 
roar had frightened him: “No, mademoiselle. . . 
My camel trembled between my legs, but I looked 
to my priming as tranquilly as before a herd of 


The Brunig Pass . 219 

cows. . . At a distance their cry is much the same, 
like this, U t ” 

To give Sonia an exact impression of the thing, 
he bellowed in his most sonorous voice a formidable 
“ Meuli . . which swelled, spread, echoed and re- 
echoed against the rock. The horses reared; in 
all the carriages the travellers sprang up alarmed, 
looking round for the accident, the cause of such an 
uproar; but recognizing the Alpinist, whose head 
and overwhelming accoutrements could be seen in 
the uncovered half of the landau, they asked them- 
selves once more : “ Who is that animal? ” 

He, very calm, continued to give details : when 
to attack the beast, where to strike him, how to 
despatch him, and about the diamond sight he 
affixed to his carbines to enable him to aim cor- 
rectly in the darkness. The young girl listened to 
him, leaning forward with a little panting of the 
nostrils, in deep attention. 

“ They say that Bombonnel still hunts ; do you 
know him ? ” asked the brother. 

“ Yes,” replied Tartarin, without enthusiasm. . . 
“ He is not a clumsy fellow, but we have better 
than he.” 

A word to the wise ! Then in a melancholy tone, 
“ Pas mouain , they give us strong emotions, these 
hunts of the great carnivora. When we have them 
no longer life seems empty; we do not know how 
to fill it.” 

Here Manilof, who understood French without 
speaking it, and seemed to be listening to Tartarin 
very intently, his peasant forehead slashed with 


2 20 


Tartarin on the Alps. 

the wrinkle of a great scar, said a few words, 
laughing, to his friends. 

“ Manilof says we are all of the same brother- 
hood,” explained Sonia to Tartarin. . . “ We hunt, 

like you, the great wild beasts.” 

“ Tl! yes, pardi . . . wolves, white bears. . .” 

“Yes, wolves, white bears, and other noxious 
animals. . 

And the laughing began again, noisy, intermi- 
nable, but in a sharp, ferocious key this time, 
laughs that showed their teeth and reminded Tar- 
tarin in what sad and singular company he was 
travelling. 

Suddenly the carriages stopped. The road be- 
came steeper and made at this spot a long circuit 
to reach the top of the Briinig pass, which could 
also be reached on foot in twenty minutes less 
time through a noble forest of birches. In spite 
of the rain in the morning, making the earth sod- 
den and slippery, the tourists nearly all left the 
carriages and started, single file, along the narrow 
path called a schlittage. 

From Tartarin’s landau, the last in line, all the 
men got out; but Sonia, thinking the path too 
muddy, settled herself back in the carriage, and as 
the Alpinist was getting out with the rest, a little 
delayed by his equipments, she said to him in a 
low voice: “Stay! keep me company...” in 
such a coaxing way ! The poor man, quite over- 
come, began immediately to forge a romance, as 
delightful as it was improbable, which made his 
old heart beat and throb. 


221 


The Brilnig Pass . 

He was quickly undeceived when he saw the 
young girl leaning anxiously forward to watch 
Bolibine and the Italian, who were talking eagerly 
together at the opening of the path, Manilof and 
Boris having already gone forward. The so-called 
tenor hesitated. An instinct seemed to warn him 
not to risk himself alone in company with those 
three men. He decided at last to go on, and 
Sonia looked at him as he mounted the path, all the 
while stroking her cheek with a bouquet of purple 
cyclamen, those mountain violets, the leaf of which 
is lined with the same fresh colour as the flowers. 

The landau proceeded slowly. The driver got 
down to walk in front with other comrades, and 
the convoy of more than fifteen empty vehicles, 
drawn nearer together by the steepness of the road, 
rolled silently along. Tartarin, greatly agitated, 
and foreboding something sinister, dared not look 
at his companion, so much did he fear that a word 
or a look might compel him to be an actor in the 
drama he felt impending. But Sonia was paying 
no attention to him ; her eyes were rather fixed, 
and she did not cease caressing the down of her 
skin mechanically with the flowers. 

“ So,” she said at length, “ so you know who we 
are, I and my friends. . . Well, what do you think 
of us? What do Frenchmen think of us? ” 

The hero turned pale, then red. He was desir- 
ous of not offending by rash or imprudent words 
such vindictive beings ; on the other hand, how 
consort with murderers? He got out of it by a 
metaphor: — 


222 


Tar tar in on the Alps . 

“ Differ eminent, mademoiselle, you were telling 
me just now that we belonged to the same brother- 
hood, hunters of hydras and monsters, despots and 
carnivora. . . It is therefore to a companion of St. 
Hubert that I now make answer. . . My sentiment 
is that, even against wild beasts we should use 
loyal weapons. . . Our Jules Gerard, a famous 
lion-slayer, employed explosive balls. I myself 
have never given in to that, I do not use them. . . 
When I hunted the lion or the panther I planted 
myself before the beast, face to face, with a good 
double-barrelled carbine, and pan ! pan ! a ball in 
each eye.” 

“ In each eye ! . . ” repeated Sonia. 

“ Never did I miss my aim.” 

He affirmed it and he believed it. 

The young girl looked at him with naive admira- 
tion, thinking aloud : — 

“ That must certainly be the surest way.” 

A sudden rending of the branches and the 
underbrush, and the thicket parted above them, so 
quickly and in so feline a way that Tartarin, his 
head now full of hunting adventures, might have 
thought himself still on the watch in the Zaccar. 
But Manilof sprang from the slope, noiselessly, and 
close to the carriage. His small, cunning eyes 
were shining in a face that was flayed by the 
briers; his beard and his long lank hair were 
streaming with water from the branches. Breath- 
less, holding with his coarse, hairy hands to the 
doorway, he spoke in Russian to Sonia, who turned 
instantly to Tartarin and said in a curt voice : — 


223 


The Briinig Pass . 

“Your rope. . . quick. . 

“ My. . . my rope? . stammered the hero. 

“ Quick, quick. . . you shall have it again in half 
an hour.” 

Offering no other explanation, she helped him 
with her little gloved hands to divest himself of his 
famous rope made in Avignon. Manilof took the 
coil,. grunting with joy; in two bounds he sprang, 
with the elasticity of a wild-cat, into the thicket 
and disappeared. 

“What has happened? What are they going 
to do? . . He looked ferocious. . . ” murmured Tar- 
tarin, not daring to utter his whole thought. 

Ferocious, Manilof! Ah! how plain it was he 
did not know him. No human being was ever 
better, gentler, more compassionate; and to show 
Tartarin a trait of that exceptionally kind nature, 
Sonia, with her clear, blue glance, told him how 
her friend, having executed a dangerous mandate 
of the Revolutionary Committee and jumped into 
the sledge which awaited him for escape, had 
threatened the driver to get out, cost what it might, 
if he persisted in whipping the horse whose fleet- 
ness alone could save him. 

Tartarin thought the act worthy of antiquity. 
Then, having reflected on all the human lives sacri- 
ficed by that same Manilof, as conscienceless as an 
earthquake or a volcano in eruption, who yet would 
not let others hurt an animal in his presence, he 
questioned the young girl with an ingenuous air : — 

“ Were there many killed by the explosion at 
the Winter Palace?” 


224 Tartarin on the Alps. 

“Too many,” replied Sonia, sadly; “and the 
only one that ought to have died escaped.” 

She remained silent, as if displeased, looking so 
pretty, her head lowered, with her long auburn 
eyelashes sweeping her pale rose cheeks. Tartarin, 
angry with himself for having pained her, was 
caught once more by that charm of youth and 
freshness which the strange little creature shed 
around her. 

“ So, monsieur, the war that we are making 
seems to you unjust, inhuman?” She said it quite 
close to him in a caress, as it were, of her breath 
and her eye; the hero felt himself weakening. . . 

“ You do not see that all means are good and 
legitimate to deliver a people who groan and suffo- 
cate? . ” 

“ No doubt, no doubt. . .” 

The young girl, growing more insistent as Tar- 
tarin weakened, went on: — 

“ You spoke just now of a void to be filled ; does 
it not seem to you more noble, more interesting to 
risk your life for a great cause than to risk it in 
slaying lions or scaling glaciers?” 

“ The fact is,” said Tartarin, intoxicated, losing 
his head and mad with an irresistible desire to take 
and kiss that ardent, persuasive little hand which 
she laid upon his arm, as she had done once before, 
up there, on the Rigi when he put on her shoe. 
Finally, unable to resist, and seizing the little 
gloved hand between both his own, — 

“‘Listen, Sonia,” he said, in a good hearty voice, 
paternal and familiar. . . “ Listen, Sonia. . 


The Brunig Pass . 225 

A sudden stop of the landau interrupted him. 
They had reached the summit of the Brunig; trav- 
ellers and drivers were getting into their carriages 
to catch up lost time and reach, at a gallop, the 
next village where the convoy was to breakfast and 
relay. The three Russians took their places, but 
that of the Italian tenor remained unoccupied. 

“ That gentleman got into one of the first car- 
riages,” said Boris to the driver, who asked about 
him; then, addressing Tartarin, whose uneasiness 
was visible : — 

“We must ask him for your rope; he chose to 
keep it with him.” 

Thereupon, fresh laughter in the landau, and 
the resumption for poor Tartarin of horrid per- 
plexity, not knowing what to think or believe in 
presence of the good-humour and ingenuous coun- 
tenances of the suspected assassins. Sonia, while 
wrapping up her invalid in cloaks and plaids, for 
the air on the summit was all the keener from the 
rapidity with which the carriages were now driven, 
related in Russian her conversation with Tartarin, 
uttering his pan ! pan ! with a pretty intonation 
which her companions repeated after ‘her, two of 
them admiring the hero, while Manilof shook his 
head incredulously. 

The relay ! 

This was on the market-place of a large village, 
at an old tavern with a worm-eaten wooden balcony, 
and a sign hanging to a rusty iron bracket. The 
file of vehicles stopped, and while the horses were 
being unharnessed the hungry tourists jumped 
iS 


226 Tartarin on the Alps . 

hurriedly down and rushed into a room on the 
lower floor, painted green and smelling of mildew, 
where the table was laid for twenty guests. Sixty 
had arrived, and for five minutes nothing could be 
heard but a frightful tumult, cries, and a vehement 
altercation between the Rices and the Prunes 
around the compote-dishes, to the great alarm of 
the tavern-keeper, who lost his head (as if daily, 
at the same hour, the same post-carriages did not 
pass) and bustled about his servants, also seized 
with chronic bewilderment — excellent method of 
serving only half the dishes called for by the carte , 
and of giving change in a way that made the white 
sous of Switzerland count for fifty centimes. 

“ Suppose we dine in the carriage,” said Sonia, 
annoyed by such confusion ; and as no one had 
time to pay attention to them the young men 
themselves did the waiting. Manilof returned 
with a cold leg of mutton, Bolibine with a long 
loaf of bread and sausages; but the best forager 
was Tartarin. Certainly the opportunity to get 
away from his companions in the bustle of relay- 
ing was a fine one ; he might at least have as- 
sured himself that the Italian had reappeared; but 
he never once thought of it, being solely pre- 
occupied with Sonia’s breakfast, and in showing 
Manilof and the others how a Tarasconese can 
manage matters. 

When he stepped down the portico of the hotel, 
gravely, with fixed eyes, bearing in his robust 
hands a large tray laden with plates, napkins, as- 
sorted food, and Swiss champagne in its gilt- 


The Brunig Pass . 227 

necked bottles, Sonia clapped her hands, and 
congratulated him. 

“ How did you manage it?” she said. 

“ I don’t know . . . somehow, ///. . We are all 
like that in Tarascon.” 

Oh ! those happy minutes ! That pleasant 
breakfast opposite to Sonia, almost on his knees, 
the village market-place, like the scene of an 
operetta, with clumps of green trees, beneath 
which sparkled the gold ornaments and the muslin 
sleeves of the Swiss girls, walking about, two and 
two, like dolls ! 

How good the bread tasted ! what savoury 
sausages ! The heavens themselves took part in 
the scene, and were soft, veiled, clement; it 
rained, of course, but so gently, the drops so rare, 
though just enough to temper the Swiss cham- 
pagne, always dangerous to Southern heads. 

Under the veranda of the hotel, a Tyrolian quar- 
tette, two giants and two female dwarfs in resplend- 
ent and heavy rags, looking as if they had escaped 
from the failure of a theatre at a fair, were mingling 
their throat notes : “ aou . . . aou . . .” with the 

clinking of plates and glasses. They were ugly, 
stupid, motionless, straining the cords of their 
skinny necks. Tartarin thought them delightful, 
and gave them a handful of sous, to the great 
amazement of the villagers who surrounded the 
unhorsed landau. 

“ Vife la Vranze ! ” quavered a voice in the 
crowd, from which issued a tall old man, clothed 
in a singular blue coat with silver buttons, the 


228 Tartarin on the Alps . 

skirts of which swept the ground ; on his head was 
a gigantic shako, in form like a bucket of sauer- 
kraut, and so weighted by its enormous plume 
that the old man was forced to balance himself 
with his arms as he walked, like an acrobat. 

“ Old soldier. . . Charles X. . 

Tartarin, fresh from Bompard’s revelations, 
began to laugh, and said in a low voice with a 
wink of his eye : — 

“ Up to that , old fellow. . .” But even so, he 
gave him a white sou and poured him out a 
bumper, which the old man accepted, laughing, 
and winking himself, though without knowing why. 
Then, dislodging from a corner of his mouth an 
enormous china pipe, he raised his glass and 
drank “ to the company,” which confirmed Tar- 
tarin in his opinion that here was a colleague of 
Bompard. 

No matter ! one toast deserved another. So, 
standing up in the carriage, his glass held high, 
his voice strong, Tartarin brought tears to his eyes 
by drinking, first; To France, my country ! . . next 
to hospitable Switzerland, which he was happy to 
honour publicly and thank for the generous wel- 
come she affords to the vanquished, to the exiled 
of all lands. Then, lowering his voice and inclin- 
ing his glass to the companions of his journey, he 
wished them a quick return to their country, res- 
toration to their family, safe friends, honourable 
careers, and an end to all dissensions; for, he said, 
it is impossible to spend one’s life in eating each 
other up. 


229 


The Brilnig Pass. 

During the utterance of this toast Sonia’s brother 
smiled, cold and sarcastic behind his blue spec- 
tacles ; Manilof, his neck pushed forth, his swollen 
eyebrows emphasizing his wrinkle, seemed to be 
asking himself if that “ big barrel ” would soon be 
done with his gabble, while Bolibine, perched on 
the box, was twisting his comical yellow face, 
wrinkled as a Barbary ape, till he looked like one 
of those villanous little monkeys squatting on the 
shoulders of the Alpinist. 

The young girl alone listened to him very 
seriously, striving to comprehend such a singular 
type of man. Did he think all that he said? Had 
he done all that he related? Was he a madman, a 
comedian, or simply a gabbler, as Manilof in his 
quality of man of action insisted, giving to the 
word a most contemptuous signification. 

The answer was given at once. His toast ended, 
Tartarin had just sat down when a sudden shot, a 
second, then a third, fired close to the tavern, 
brought him again to his feet, ears straining and 
nostrils scenting powder. 

“Who fired? . . where is it? . . what is hap- 
pening? . .” 

In his inventive noddle a whole drama was 
already defiling ; attack on the convoy by armed 
bands; opportunity given him to defend the 
honour and life of thatcharming young lady. But 
no ! the discharges only came from the Stand, 
where the youths of the village practise at a mark 
every Sunday. As the horses were not yet har- 
nessed, Tartarin, as if carelessly, proposed to go and 


230 Tar tar in on the Alps . 

look at them. He had his idea, and Sonia had 
hers in accepting the proposal. Guided by the old 
soldier of Charles X. wobbling under his shako, 
they crossed the market-place, opening the ranks 
of the crowd, who followed them with curiosity. 

Beneath its thatched roof and its square uprights 
of pine wood the Stand resembled one of our own 
pistol-galleries at a fair, with this difference, that 
the amateurs brought their own weapons, breech' 
loading muskets of the oldest pattern, which they 
managed, however, with some adroitness. Tar- 
tarin, his arms crossed, observed the shots, 
criticised them aloud, gave his advice, but did not 
fire himself. The Russians watched him, making 
signs to each other. 

“ Pan ! . . pan ! . . ” sneered Bolibine, making 
the gesture of taking aim and mimicking Tartarin’s 
accent. Tartarin turned round very red, and swell- 
ing with anger. 

“ Parfaitcmain , young man. . . Pan ! . . pan ! . . 
and as often as you like.” 

The time to load an old double-barrelled car- 
bine which must have served several generations 
of chamois hunters, and — pan! . . pan ! . . ’Tis 
done. Both balls are in the bull’s-eye. Hurrahs 
of admiration burst forth on all sides. Sonia 
triumphed. Bolibine laughed no more. 

“ But that is nothing, that ! ” said Tartarin ; 
“ you shall see. . .” 

The Stand did not suffice him ; he looked about 
for another target, and the crowd recoiled alarmed 
from this strange Alpinist, thick-set, savage-look- 


231 


The Brunig Pass 

ing and carbine in hand, when they heard him 
propose to the old guard of Charles X. to break 
his pipe between his teeth at fifty paces. The old 
fellow howled in terror and plunged into the crowd, 
his trembling plume remaining visible above their 
serried heads. None the less, Tartarin felt that he 
must put it somewhere, that ball. “ 7V/ pardi ! as 
we did at Tarascon ! . And the former cap- 
hunter pitched his headgear high into the air with all 
the strength of his double muscles, shot it on the fly, 
and pierced it. “ Bravo ! ” cried Sonia, sticking 
into the small hole made by the ball the bouquet 
of cyclamen with which she had stroked her cheek. 

With that charming trophy in his cap Tartarin 
returned to the landau. The trumpet sounded, the 
convoy started, the horses went rapidly down to 
Brienz along that marvellous corniche road, blasted 
in the side of the rock, separated from an abyss of 
over a thousand feet by single stones a couple of 
yards apart. But Tartarin was no longer conscious 
of danger; no longer did he look at the scenery — 
that Meyringen valley, seen through a light veil of 
mist, with its river in straight lines, the lake, the 
villages massing themselves in the distance, and 
that whole horizon of mountains, of glaciers, blend- 
ing at times with the clouds, displaced by the turns 
of the road, lost apparently, and then returning, 
like the shifting scenes of a stage. 

Softened by tender thoughts, the hero admired 
the sweet child before him, reflecting that glory is 
only a semi-happiness, that 't is sad to grow old all 
alone in your greatness, like Moses, and that this 


23 2 Tartarin on the Alps . 

fragile flower of the North transplanted into the 
little garden at Tarascon would brighten its monot- 
ony, and be sweeter to see and breathe than that 
everlasting baobab, arbos gigantea , diminutively 
confined in the mignonette pot. With her child- 
like eyes, and her broad brow, thoughtful and 
self-willed, Sonia looked at him, and she, too, 
dreamed — but who knows what the young girls 
dream of? 


The Nights at Tar as con. 


233 


VII. 

The nights at Tar as con. Where is he? Anxiety. The 
grasshoppers on the promenade call for Tartarin. Martyr- 
dom of a great Tarasconese saint. The Club of the A Ipines. 
What was happening at the phannacy. “ Help / help l 
Bezuquet ! ” 

“ A LETTER, Monsieur Bezuquet ! . . Comes 
from Switzerland, vd! . . Switzerland ! ” cried the 
postman joyously, from the other end of the little 
square, waving something in the air, and hurrying 
along in the coming darkness. 

The apothecary, who took the air, as they say, 
of an evening before his door in his shirt-sleeves, 
gave a jump, seized the letter with feverish hands 
and carried it into his lair among the varied odours 
of elixirs and dried herbs, but did not open it till 
the postman had departed, refreshed by a glass of 
that delicious strop de cadavre in recompense for 
what he brought 

Fifteen days had Bezuquet expected it, this 
letter from Switzerland, fifteen days of agonized 
watching ! And here it was. Merely from look- 
ing at the cramped and resolute little writing on the 
envelope, the postmark “ Interlaken ” and the, 
broad purple stamp of the “ H6tel Jungfrau, kept 
by Meyer,” the tears filled his eyes, and the heavy 


234 Tar tar in on the Alps, 

moustache of the Barbary corsair through which 
whispered softly the idle whistle of a kindly soul, 
quivered. 

“ Confidential. Destroy when read.” 

Those words, written large at the head of the 
page, in the telegraphic style of the pharma- 
copoeia (“external use; shake before using”) 
troubled him to the point of making him read 
aloud, as one does in a bad dream : 

“ Fearful things are happe7iing to me. . .” 

In the salon beside the pharmacy where she was 
taking her little nap after supper, Mine. Bezuquet, 
mire, might hear him, or the pupil whose pestle 
was pounding its regular blows in the big marble 
mortar of the laboratory. Bezuquet continued his 
reading in a low voice, beginning it over again two 
or three times, very pale, his hair literally standing 
on end. Then, with a rapid look about him, era 
era. . . and the letter in a thousand scraps went into 
the waste-paper basket ; but there it might be 
found, and pieced together, and as he was stoop- 
ing to gather up the fragments a quavering voice 
called to him : 

“ VI ! Ferdinand, are you there? ” 

“Yes, mamma,” replied the unlucky corsair, 
curdling with fear, the whole of his long body on 
its hands and knees beneath the desk. 

“ What are you doing, my treasure? ” 

“I am. . . h’m, I am making Mile. Tournatoire’s 
eye-salve.” 

Mamma went to sleep again, the pupil’s pestle, 
suspended for a moment, began once more its slow 


The Nights at Tar as con. 235 

clock movement, while Bezuquet walked up and 
down before his door in the deserted little square, 
turning pink or green according as he passed 
before one or other of his bottles. From time 
to time he threw up his arms, uttering disjointed 
words: “ Unhappy man! . . lost. . . fatal love. . . 
how can we extricate him? ” and, in spite of his 
trouble of mind, accompanying with a lively whistle 
the bugle “taps” of a dragoon regiment echoing 
among the plane-trees of the Tour de Ville. 

“ 77/ / good night, Bdzuquet,” said a shadow 
hurrying along in the ash-coloured twilight. 

“ Where are you going, Pegoulade? ” 

“ To the Club, pardi ! . . Night session. . . they 
are going to discuss Tartarin and the presidency. . . 
You ought to come.” 

“ Te ! yes, I ’ll come ...” said the apothecary 
vehemently, a providential idea darting through his 
mind. He went in, put on his frock-coat, felt in 
its pocket to assure himself that his latchkey was 
there, and also the American tomahawk, without 
which no Tarasconese whatsoever would risk him- 
self in the streets after “ taps. ” Then he called : 
“ Pascalon ! . . Pascalon ! . but not too loudly, for 
fear of waking the old lady. 

Almost a child, though bald, wearing all his hair 
in his curly blond beard, Pascalon the pupil had the 
ardent soul of a partizan, a dome-like forehead, the 
eyes of crazy goat, and on his chubby cheeks the 
delicate tints of a shiny crusty Beaucaire roll. On 
all the grand Alpine excursions it was to him that 
the Club entrusted its banner, and his childish 


236 Tartarin on the Alps . 

soul had vowed to the P. C. A. a fanatical wor- 
ship, the burning, silent adoration of a taper con- 
suming itself before an altar in the Easter season. 

“ Pascalon,” said the apothecary in a low voice, 
and so close to him that the bristle of his moustache 
pricked his ear. “ I have news of Tartarin. . . It is 
heart-breaking. . .” 

Seeing him turn pale, he added: 

“ Courage, child ! all can be repaired. . . Dif- 
feremment I confide to you the pharmacy. . . If any 
one asks you for arsenic, don’t give it ; opium, don’t 
give that either, nor rhubarb. . . don’t give any- 
thing. If I am not in by ten o’clock, lock the door 
and go to bed.” 

With intrepid step, he plunged into the dark- 
ness, not once looking back, which allowed Pasca- 
lon to spring at the waste-paper basket, turn it over 
and over with feverish eager hands and finally tip 
out its contents on the leather of the desk to see if 
no scrap remained of the mysterious letter brought 
by the postman. 

To those who know Tarasconese excitability, it 
is easy to imagine the frantic condition of the little 
town after Tartarin’s abrupt disappearance. Et 
antrement , pas moins , diffcremment , they lost their 
heads, all the more because it was the middle of 
August and their brains boiled in the sun till their 
skulls were fit to crack. From morning till night 
they talked of nothing else; that one name 
“ Tartarin ” alone was heard on the pinched lips of 
the elderly ladies in hoods, in the rosy mouths of 
grisettes, their hair tied up with velvet ribbons: 


237 


The Nights at Tarascon . 

“ Tartarin, Tartarin. . Even among the plane- 
trees on the Promenade, heavy with white dust, dis- 
tracted grasshoppers, vibrating in the sunlight, 
seemed to strangle with those two sonorous syl- 
lables : “ Tar . . tar . . tar . . tar . . tar . . 

As no one knew anything, naturally every one 
was well-informed and gave explanations of the 
departure of the president. Extravagant versions 
appeared. According to some, he had entered 
La Trappe ; he had eloped with the Dugazon; 
others declared he had gone to the Isles to found 
a colony to be called Port-Tarascon, or else to 
roam Central Africa in search of Livingstone. 

“ Ah ! vat! Livingstone ! . . Why he has been 
dead these two years.” 

But Tarasconese imagination defies all hints of 
time and space. And the curious thing is that 
these ideas of La Trappe, colonization, distant 
travel, were Tartarin’s own ideas, dreams of that 
sleeper awake, communicated in past days to his 
intimate friends, who now, not knowing what to 
think, and vexed in their hearts at not being duly 
informed, affected toward the public the greatest 
reserve and behaved to one another with a sly 
air of private understanding. Excourbanies sus- 
pected Bravida of being in the secret; Bravida, 
on his side, thought : “ Bezuquet knows the truth ; 
he looks about him like a dog with a bone.” 

True it was that the apothecary suffered a 
thousand deaths from this hair-shirt of a secret, 
which cut him, skinned him, turned him pale and 
red in the same minute and caused him to squint 


2 38 Tartarin on the Alps . 

continually. Remember that he belonged to 
Tarascon, unfortunate man, and say if, in all 
martyrology, you can find so terrible a torture as 
this — the torture of Saint Bezuquet, who knew 
a secret and could not tell it. 

This is why, on that particular evening, in spite 
of the terrifying news he had just received, his step 
had something, I hardly know what, freer, more 
buoyant, as he went to the session of the Club. 
Enfin! . . He was now to speak, to unbosom 
himself, to tell that which weighed so heavily 
upon him ; and in his haste to unload his breast 
he cast a few half words as he went along to the 
loiterers on the Promenade. The day had been 
so hot, that in spite of the unusual hour ( a quarter 
to eight on the clock of the town hall !) and the terri- 
fying darkness, quite a crowd of reckless persons, 
bourgeois families getting the good of the air while 
that of their houses evaporated, bands of five or 
six sewing-women, rambling along in an undulat- 
ing line of chatter and laughter, were abroad. 
In every group they were talking of Tartarin. 

“ Et autrernent , Monsieur Bezuquet, still no 
letter?” they asked of the apothecary, stopping 
him on his way. 

“ Yes, yes, my friends, yes, there is . . . Read 
the Forujn to-morrow morning. . . ” 

He hastened his steps, but they followed him, 
fastened on him, and along the Promenade rose 
a murmuring sound, the bleating of a flock, which 
gathered beneath the windows of the Club, left 
wide open in great squares of light 


239 


The Nights at Tarascon . 

The sessions were held in the bouillotte room, 
where the long table covered with green cloth 
served as a desk. At the centre, the presidential 
arm-chair, with P. C. A. embroidered on the back 
of it; at one end, humbly, the armless chair of the 
secretary. Behind, the banner of the Club, draped 
above a long glazed map in relief, on which the 
Alpines stood up with their respective names 
and altitudes. Alpenstocks of honour, inlaid 
with ivory, stacked like billiard cues, ornamented 
the corners, and a glass-case displayed curiosities, 
crystals, silex, petrifactions, two porcupines and 
a salamander, collected on the mountains. 

In Tartarin’s absence, Costecalde, rejuvenated 
and radiant, occupied the presidential arm-chair ; 
the armless chair was for Excourbanies, who 
fulfilled the functions of secretary; but that devil 
of a man, frizzled, hairy, bearded, was incessantly 
in need of noise, motion, activity which hindered 
his sedentary employments. At the smallest 
pretext, he threw out his arms and legs, uttered 
fearful howls and “ Ha ! ha ! has ! ” of ferocious, 
exuberant joy which always ended with a war-cry 
in the Tarasconese patois : “ Fen d£ brut ... let 
us make a noise ”... He was called “ the gong ” 
on account of his metallic voice, which cracked the 
ears of his friends with its ceaseless explosions. 

Here and there, on a horsehair divan that ran 
round the room were the members of the com- 
mittee. 

In the first row, sat the former captain of 
equipment, Bravida, whom all Tarascon called the 


240 Tartarin on the Alps . 

Commander; a very small man, clean as a ne\V 
penny, who redeemed his childish figure by 
making himself as moustached and savage a 
head as Vercingetorix. 

Next came the long, hollow, sickly face of 
Pegoulade, the collector, last survivor of the wreck 
of the “ Medusa.” Within the memory of man, 
Tarascon has never been without a last survivor 
of the wreck of the “ Medusa.” At one time 
they even numbered three, who treated one 
another mutually as impostors, and never con- 
sented to meet in the same room. Of these 
three the only true one was Pegoulade. Setting 
sail with his parents on the “ Medusa,” he met 
with the fatal disaster when six months old, — 
which did not prevent him from relating the event, 
de visu , in its smallest details, famine, boats, raft, 
and how he had taken the captain, who was sel- 
fishly saving himself, by the throat: “To your 
duty, wretch ! . . ” At six months old, outre! . . . 
Wearisome, to tell the truth, with that eternal tale 
which everybody was sick of for the last fifty 
years ; but he took it as a pretext to assume a 
melancholy air, detached from life: “ After what 
I have seen!” he would say — very unjustly, 
because it was to that he owed his post as 
collector and kept it under all administrations. 

Near him sat the brothers Rognonas, twins and 
sexagenarians, who never parted, but always quar- 
relled and said the most monstrous things to each 
other; their two old heads, defaced, corroded, 
irregular, and ever looking in opposite directions 


The Nights at Tar as con. 241 

out of antipathy, were so alike that they might 
have figured in a collection of coins with IANVS 
bifrons on the exergue. 

Here and there, were Judge Bedaride, Barjavel 
the lawyer, the notary Cambalalette, and the ter- 
rible Doctor Tournatoire, of whom Bravida re- 
marked that he could draw blood from a radish. 

In consequence of the great heat, increased by 
the gas, these gentlemen held the session in their 
shirt-sleeves, which detracted much from the 
solemnity of the occasion. It is true that the 
meeting was a very small one ; and the infamous 
Costecalde was anxious to profit by that circum- 
stance to fix the earliest possible date for the 
elections without awaiting Tartarin’s return. Con- 
fident in this manoeuvre, he was enjoying his tri- 
umph in advance, and when, after the reading of the 
minutes by Excourbanies, he rose to insinuate his 
scheme, an infernal smile curled up the corners of 
his thin lips. 

“ Distrust the man who smiles before he speaks,” 
murmured the Commander. 

Costecalde, not flinching, and winking with one 
eye at the faithful Tournatoire, began in a spiteful 
voice : — 

“ Gentlemen, the extraordinary conduct of our 
president, the uncertainty in which he leaves 
us. . .” 

“ False ! . . The president has written. . .” 

Bezuquet, quivering, planted himself squarely 
before the table; but conscious that his attitude 
was anti-parliamentary, he changed his tone, and, 
16 


242 Tartarin on the Alps. 

raising one hand according to usage, he asked for 
the floor, to make an urgent communication. 

v Speak ! Speak ! ” 

Costecalde, very yellow, his throat tightened, 
gave him the floor by a motion of his head. Then, 
and not till then, Bezuquet spoke: 

“Tartarin is at the foot of the Jungfrau ... he 
is about to make the ascent . . . he desires to take 
with him our banner. . 

Silence; broken by the heavy breathing of 
chests; then a loud hurrah, bravos, stamping of 
the feet, above which rose the gong ofExcourbanies 
uttering his war-cry “ Ha ! ha ! ha ! fen dl brut! " 
to which the anxious crowd without responded. 

Costecalde, getting more and more yellow, tinkled 
the presidential bell desperately. Bezuquet at last 
was allowed to continue, mopping his forehead and 
pufling as if he had just mounted five pairs of 
stairs. 

Differemmenty the banner that their president 
requested in order to plant it on virgin heights, 
should it be wrapped up, packed up, and sent by 
express like an ordinary trunk? . . 

“ Never ! . . Ah ! ah ! ah ! . roared Excour- 
banies. 

Would it not be better to appoint a delegation — • 
draw lots for three members of the committee? . . 

He was not allowed to finish. The time to say 
zou! and Bouquet’s proposition was voted by 
acclamation, and the names of three delegates drawn 
in the following order: 1, Bravida; 2, Pegoulade; 
3, the apothecary. 


243 


The Nights at Tar as con. 

No. 2, protested. The long journey frightened 
him, so feeble and ill as he was, ptchire! ever 
since that terrible event of the “ Medusa.” 

“ I ’ll go for you, Pegoulade,” roared Excour- 
banies, telegraphing with all his limbs. As for 
Bezuquet, he could not leave the pharmacy, the 
safety of the town depended on him. One impru- 
dence of the pupil, and all Tarascon might be 
poisoned, decimated : 

“ Outre ! ” cried the whole committee, agreeing 
as one man. 

Certainly the apothecary could not go himself, 
but he could send Pascalon ; Pascalon could 
take charge of the banner. That was his busi- 
ness. Thereupon, fresh exclamations, further ex- 
plosions of the gong, and on the Promenade 
such a popular tempest that Excourbanies was 
forced to show himself and address the crowd 
above its roarings, which his matchless voice soon 
mastered. 

“ My friends, Tartarin is found. He is about to 
cover himself with glory.” 

Without adding more than “ Vive Tartarin ! ” 
and his war-cry, given with all the force of his 
lungs, he stood for a moment enjoying the tre- 
mendous clamour of the crowd below, rolling and 
hustling confusedly in clouds of dust, while from 
the branches of the trees the grasshoppers added 
their queer little rattle as if it were broad day. 

Hearing all this, Costecalde, who had gone to a 
window with the rest, returned, staggering, to his 
arm-chair. 


244 


Tar tar in on the Alps. 


“ VI! Costecalde,” said some one. “What’s the 
matter with him ? . . Look how yellow he is ! ” 

They sprang to him ; already the terrible 
Tournatoire had whipped out his lancet: but the 
gunsmith, writhing in distress, made a horrible 
grimace, and said ingenuously: 

“ Nothing . . . nothing ... let me alone ... I 
know what it is . . . it is envy.” 

Poor Costecalde, he seemed to suffer much. 

While these things were happening, at the other 
end of the Tour de Ville, in the pharmacy, Be- 
zuquet’s pupil, seated before his master’s desk, was 
patiently patching and gumming together the 
fragments of Tartarin’s letter overlooked by the 
apothecary at the bottom of the basket. But 
numerous bits were lacking in the reconstruction, 
for here is the singular and sinister enigma spread 
out before him, not unlike a map of Central Africa, 
with voids and spaces of terra incognita , which the 
artless standard-bearer explored in a state of terri- 
fied imagination : 


cannot tear myself 
to death 
for her 


reed-wick lam 


mad with love 
preserves of Chicago. 
Nihilist 


condition abom in exchange 

You know me, Ferdi 

know my liberal ideas, 


but from there to tzaricide 


rrible consequences 


Siberia hung 


adore her 

press thy loyal hand 
Tar Tar 


Ah! 


Memorable Dialogue. 


245 


VIII. 

Memorable dialogue between the Jungfrau and Tartarin . 
A nihilist salon. The duel with hunting-knives. Fright - 
ful nightmare. “ Is it I you are seeking , messieurs t ” 
Strange reception given by the hotel-keeper Meyer to the 
Tarasconese delegation. 

Like all the other choice hotels at Interlaken, 
the Hotel Jungfrau, kept by Meyer, is situated 
on the Hoheweg, a wide promenade between double 
rows of chestnut-trees that vaguely reminded Tar- 
tarin of the beloved Tour de Ville of his native 
town, minus the sun, the grasshoppers, and the 
dust; for during his week’s sojourn at Interlaken 
the rain had never ceased to fall. 

He occupied a very fine chamber with a bal- 
cony on the first floor, and trimmed his beard 
in the morning before a little hand-glass hanging 
to the window', an old habit of his when travelling. 
The first object that daily struck his eyes beyond 
the fields of grass and corn, the nursery gardens, 
and an amphitheatre of solemn verdure in rising 
stages, was the Jungfrau, lifting from the clouds 
her summit, like a horn, white and pure with un- 
broken snow, to which was daily clinging a furtive 
ray of the still invisible rising sun. Then between 
the white and rosy Alp and the Alpinist a little 


246 Tartarin on the Alps . 

dialogue took place regularly, which was not with- 
out its grandeur. 

“Tartarin, are you coming?” asked the Jung- 
frau sternly. 

“ Here, here. . .” replied the hero, his thumb 
under his nose and finishing his beard as fast as 
possible. Then he would hastily take down his 
ascensionist outfit and, swearing at himself, put it 
on. 

“ Coquin de sort ! there ’s no name for it. . 

But a soft voice rose, demure and clear among 
the myrtles in the border beneath his window. 

“ Good-morning,” said Sonia, as he appeared 
upon the balcony, “ the landau is ready. . . Come, 
make haste, lazy man. . .” 

“ I ’m coming, I ’m coming. . .” 

In a trice he had changed his thick flannel shirt 
for linen of the finest quality, his mountain knick- 
erbockers for a suit of serpent-green that turned 
the heads of all the women in Tarascon at the 
Sunday concerts. 

The horses of the landau were pawing before 
the door; Sonia was already installed beside Boris, 
paler, more emaciated day by day in spite of the 
beneficent climate of Interlaken. But, regularly, 
at the moment of starting, Tartarin was fated to 
see two forms arise from a bench on the prom- 
enade and approach him with the heavy rolling 
step of mountain bears; these were Rodolphe 
Kaufmann and Christian Inebnit, two famous 
Grindelwald guides, engaged by Tartarin for the 
ascension of the Jungfrau, who came every morn- 


Memorable Dialogue . 247 

mg to ascertain if their monsieur were ready to 
start. 

The apparition of these two men, in their iron- 
clamped shoes and fustian jackets worn threadbare 
on the back and shoulder by knapsacks and ropes, 
their naive and serious faces, and the four words 
of French which they managed to splutter as they 
twisted their broad-brimmed hats, were a positive 
torture to Tartarin. In vain he said to them: 
“ Don’t trouble yourselves to come; I’ll send for 
you. . 

Every day he found them in the same place and 
got rid of them by a large coin proportioned to 
the enormity of his remorse. Enchanted with this 
method of “doing the Jungfrau,” the moun- 
taineers pocketed their trinkgeld gravely, and took, 
with resigned step, the path to their native village, 
leaving Tartarin confused and despairing at his 
own weakness. Then the broad open air, the 
flowering plains reflected in the limpid pupils of 
Sonia’s eyes, the touch of her little foot against 
his boot in the carriage. . . The devil take that 
Jungfrau ! The hero thought only of his love, 
or rather of the mission he had given himself to 
bring back into the right path that poor little 
Sonia, so unconsciously criminal, cast by sisterly 
devotion outside of the law, and outside of human 
nature. 

This was the motive that kept him at Interlaken, 
in the same hotel as the Wassiliefs. At his age, 
with his air of a good papa, he certainly could not 
dream of making that poor child love him, but he 


248 Tartarin on the Alps . 

saw her so sweet, so brave, so generous to all the 
unfortunates of her party, so devoted to that 
brother whom the mines of Siberia had sent back 
to her, his body eaten with ulcers, poisoned with 
verdigris, and he himself condemned to death by 
phthisis more surely than by any court. There 
was enough in all that to touch a man ! 

Tartarin proposed to take them to Tarascon 
and settle them in a villa full of sun at the 
gates of the town, that good little town where 
it never rains and where life is spent in fetes and 
song. And with that he grew excited, rattled a 
tambourine air on the crown of his hat, and 
trolled out the gay native chorus of the faran- 
dole dance : 


Lagadigadeoii 
La Tarasque, la Tarasque, 

Lagadigadeoii 
La Tarasque de Casteou. 

But while a satirical smile pinched still closer 
the lips of the sick man, Sonia shook her head. 
Neither fetes nor sun for her so long as the 
Russians groaned beneath the yoke of the tyrant. 
As soon as her brother was well — her despairing 
eyes said another thing — nothing could prevent 
her from returning up there to suffer and die 
in the sacred cause. 

“But, coquin de bon sort !” cried Tartarin, “if 
you blow up one tyrant there ’ll come another. . . 
You will have it all to do over again. . . And 
the years will go by, ve ! the days for happiness 


Memorable Dialogue . 249 

and love. .” His way of saying love — amour — 
a la Tarasconese, with three r’s in it and his eyes 
starting out of his head, amused the young girl ; 
then, serious once more, she declared she would 
never love any man but the one who delivered her 
country. Yes, that man, were he as ugly as 
Bolibine, more rustic and common than Manilof, 
she was ready to give herself wholly to him, to 
live at his side, a free gift, as long as her youth 
lasted and the man wished for her. 

“ Free gift ! ” the term used by Nihilists to 
express those illegal unions they contract among 
themselves by reciprocal consent. And of such 
primitive marriage Sonia spoke tranquilly with 
her virgin air before the Tarasconese, who, worthy 
bourgeois, peaceful elector, was now ready to 
spend his days beside that adorable girl in the 
said state of “free gift” if she had not added 
those murderous and abominable conditions. 

While they were conversing of these extremely 
delicate matters, the fields, the lakes, the forests, 
the mountains lay spread before them, and always 
at each new turn, through the cool mist of that 
perpetual shower which accompanied our hero 
on all his excursions, the Jungfrau raised her 
white crest, as if to poison by remorse those de- 
licious hours. They returned to breakfast at 
a vast table cPhote where the Rices and Prunes 
continued their silent hostilities, to which Tartarin 
was wholly indifferent, seated by Sonia, watching 
that Boris had no open window at his back, 
assiduous, paternal, exhibiting all his seductions 


250 Tar tar in on the Alps . 

as man of the world and his domestic qualities 
as an excellent cabbage-rabbit. 

After this, he took tea with the Russians in 
their little salon opening on a tiny garden at 
the end of the terrace. Another exquisite hour 
for Tartarin of intimate chat in a low voice 
while Boris slept on a sofa. The hot water bubbled 
in the samovar; a perfume of moist flowers 
slipped through the half-opened door with the 
blue reflection of the solanums that were clustering 
about it. A little more sun, more warmth, and 
here was his dream realized, his pretty Russian 
installed beside him, taking care of the garden 
of the baobab. 

Suddenly Sonia gave a jump. 

“ Two o’clock ! . . And the letters? ” 

“ I’m going for them,” said the good Tartarin, 
and, merely from the tones of his voice and the 
resolute, theatrical gesture with which he but- 
toned his coat and seized his cane, any one would 
have guessed the gravity of the action, apparently 
so simple, of going to the post-office to fetch the 
Wassilief letters. 

Closely watched by the local authorities and 
the Russian police, all Nihilists, but especially 
their leaders, are compelled to take certain pre- 
cautions, such as having their letters and papers 
addressed poste restante to simple initials. 

Since their installation at Interlaken, Boris 
being scarcely able to drag himself about, Tartarin, 
to spare Sonia the annoyance of waiting in line 
before the post-office wicket exposed to inquisi- 


Memorable Dialogue . 251 

tive eyes, had taken upon himself the risks and 
perils of this daily nuisance. The post-office 
is not more than ten minutes’ walk from the 
hotel, in a wide and noisy street at the end of a 
promenade lined with cafes, breweries, shops for 
the tourists displaying alpenstocks, gaiters, straps, 
opera-glasses, smoked glasses, flasks, travelling- 
bags, all of which articles seemed placed there 
expressly to shame the renegade Alpinist. Tour- 
ists were defiling in caravans, with horses, guides, 
mules, veils green and blue, and a tintinnabulation 
of canteens as the animals ambled, the ice-picks 
marking each step on the cobble-stones. But this 
festive scene, hourly renewed, left Tartarin indiffer- 
ent. He never even felt the fresh north wind 
with a touch of snow coming in gusts from the 
mountains, so intent was he on baffling the spies 
whom he supposed to be upon his traces. 

The foremost soldier of a vanguard, the sharp- 
shooter skirting the walls of an enemy’s town, 
never advanced with more mistrust than the Taras- 
conese hero while crossing the short distance 
between the hotel and the post-office. At the 
slightest heel-tap sounding behind his own, he 
stopped, looked attentively at the photographs in 
the windows, or fingered an English or German 
book lying on a stall, to oblige the police spy to 
pass him. Or else he turned suddenly round, to 
stare with ferocious eyes at a stout servant-girl going 
to market, or some harmless tourist, a table d'hote 
Prune, who, taking him for a madman, turned off, 
alarmed, from the sidewalk to avoid him. 


7^2 Tartarin on the Alps . 

When he reached the office, where the wickets 
open, rather oddly, into the street itself, Tartarin 
passed and repassed, to observe the surrounding 
physiognomies before he himself approached : 
then, suddenly darting forward, he inserted his 
whole head and shoulders into the opening, mut- 
tered a few indistinct syllables (which they always 
made him repeat, to his great despair), and, pos- 
sessor at last of the mysterious trust, he returned 
to the hotel by a great detour on the kitchen side, 
his hand in his pocket clutching the package of 
letters and papers, prepared to tear up and swal- 
low everything at the first alarm. 

Manilof and Bolibine were usually awaiting his 
return with the Wassiliefs. They did not lodge in 
the hotel, out of prudence and economy. Bolibine 
had found work in a printing-office, and Manilof, 
a very clever cabinetmaker, was employed by a 
builder. Tartarin did not like them : one annoyed 
him by his grimaces and his jeering airs; the 
other kept looking at him savagely. Besides, 
they took too much space in Sonia’s heart. 

“ He is a hero ! ” she said of Bolibine; and she 
told how for three years he had printed all alone, 
in the very heart of St. Petersburg, a revolutionary 
paper. Three years without ever leaving his 
upper room, or showing himself at a window, sleep- 
ing at night in a great cupboard built in the wall, 
where the woman who lodged him locked him up 
till morning with his clandestine press. 

And then, that life of Manilof, spent for six 
months in the subterranean passages beneath the 


Memorable Dialogue . 253 

Winter Palace, watching his opportunity, sleeping 
at night on his provision of dynamite, which re- 
sulted in giving him frightful headaches, and 
nervous troubles ; all this, aggravated by perpetual 
anxiety, sudden irruptions of the police, vaguely 
informed that something was plotting, and coming, 
suddenly and unexpectedly, to surprise the work- 
men employed at the Palace. On one of the rare 
occasions when Manilof came out of the mine, he 
met on the Place de l’Amirautd a delegate of the 
Revolutionary Committee, who asked him in a low 
voice, as he walked along: 

“ Is it finished? ” 

“No, not yet . . .” said the other, scarcely mov- 
ing his lips. At last, on an evening in February, 
to the same question in the same words he 
answered, with the greatest calmness: 

“ It is finished. . 

And almost immediately a horrible uproar 
confirmed his words, all the lights of the palace 
went out suddenly, the place was plunged into 
complete obscurity, rent by cries of agony and 
terror, the blowing of bugles, the galloping of 
soldiers, and firemen tearing along with their trucks. 

Here Sonia interrupted her tale : 

“ Is it not horrible, so many human lives sacri- 
ficed, such efforts, such courage, such wasted 
intelligence? . . No, no, it is a bad means, these 
butcheries in the mass. . . He who should be 
killed always escapes. . . The true way, the most 
humane, would be to seek the czar himself as you 
seek the lion, fully determined, fully armed, post 


254 Tar tar in on the Alps . 

yourself at a window or the door of a carriage . . , 
and, when he passes ” 

“ Bl ! yes, certainemain . . responded Tartarin 
embarrassed, and pretending not to seize her mean- 
ing; then, suddenly, he would launch into a philo- 
sophical, humanitarian discussion with one of the 
numerous assistants. For Bolibine and Manilof 
were not the only visitors to the Wassiliefs Every 
day new faces appeared of young people, men or 
women, with the cut of poor students ; elated 
teachers, blond and rosy, with the self-willed 
forehead and the childlike ferocity of Sonia; out- 
lawed exiles, some of them already condemned to 
death, which lessened in no way their youthful 
expansiveness. 

They laughed, they talked openly, and as most 
of them spoke French, Tartarin was soon at his 
ease. They called him “ uncle,” conscious of 
something childlike and artless about him that 
they liked. Perhaps he was over-ready with his 
hunting tales ; turning up his sleeve to his biceps in 
order to show the scar of a blow from a panther’s 
claws, or making his hearers feel beneath his beard 
the holes left there by the fangs of a lion; perhaps 
also he became too rapidly familiar with these 
persons, catching them round the waist, leaning on 
their shoulders, calling them by their Christian 
names after five minutes’ intercourse : 

“Listen, Dmitri...” “You know me, F£dor 
Ivanovich. . .” They knew him only since yester- 
day, in any case ; but they liked him all the same 
for his jovial frankness, his amiable, trustful air, 


M ? movable Dialog ue. 255 

and his readiness to please. They read their let- 
ters before him, planned their plots, and told their 
passwords to foil the police : a whole atmosphere 
of conspiracy which amused the imagination of the 
Tarasconese hero immensely: so that, however 
opposed by nature to acts of violence, he could 
not help, at times, discussing their homicidal plans, 
approving, criticising, and giving advice dictated 
by the experience of a great leader who has trod 
the path of war, trained to the handling of all 
weapons, and to hand-to-hand conflicts with wild 
beasts. 

One day, when they told in his presence of the 
murder of a policeman, stabbed by a Nihilist at 
the theatre, Tartarin showed them how badly the 
blow had been struck, and gave them a lesson in 
knifing. 

“ Like this, vl ! from the top down. Then 
there ’s no risk of wounding yourself. . 

And, excited by his own imitation : 

“ Let ’s suppose, tl ! that I hold your despot 
between four eyes in a boar-hunt. He is over 
there, where you are, Fedor, and I’m here, near 
this round table, each of us with our hunting- 
knife. . . Come on, monseigneur, we ’ll have it 
out now. . .” 

Planting himself in the middle of the salon, 
gathering his sturdy legs under him for a spring, 
and snorting like a woodchopper, he mimicked a 
real fight, ending by his cry of triumph as he 
plunged the weapon to the hilt, from the top down, 
coquin de sort ! into the bowels of his adversary. 


256 Tartarin on the Alps. 

“ That ’s how it ought to be done, my little 
fellows ! ” 

But what subsequent remorse ! what anguish 
when, escaping from the magnetism of Sonia’s blue 
eyes, he found himself alone, in his nightcap, alone 
with his reflections and his nightly glass of eau 
sncr^e ! 

Differ eminent, what was he meddling with? 
The czar was not his czar, decidedly, and all 
these matters didn ’t concern him in the least. . . 
And don’t you see that some of these days he 
would be captured, extradited and delivered over 
to Muscovite justice... Bonfre ! they don't 
joke, those Cossacks.. . And in the obscurity of 
his hotel chamber, with that horrible imagina- 
tive faculty which the horizontal position increases, 
there developed before him — like one of those 
unfolding pictures given to him in childhood — 
the various and terrible punishments to which 
he should be subjected: Tartarin in the verdigris 
mines, like Boris, working in water to his belly, 
his body ulcerated, poisoned. He escapes, he 
hides amid forests laden with snow, pursued by 
Tartars and bloodhounds trained to hunt men. 
Exhausted with cold and hunger, he is retaken and 
finally hung between two thieves, embraced by a 
pope with greasy hair smelling of brandy and seal- 
oil; while away down there, at Tarascon in the 
sunshine, the band playing of a fine Sunday, 
the crowd, the ungrateful crowd, are installing a 
radiant Costecalde in the chair of the P. C A. 

It was during the agony of one of these dreadful 


Memorable Dialogue . 257 

dreams that he uttered his cry of distress, “ Help, 
help, Bezuquet! ” and sent to the apothecary that 
confidential letter, all moist with the sweat of his 
nightmare. But Sonia’s pretty “Good morning” 
beneath his window sufficed to cast him back into 
the weaknesses of indecision. 

One evening, returning from the Kursaal to the 
hotel with the Wassiliefs and Bolibine, after two 
hours of intoxicating music, the unfortunate man 
forgot all prudence, and the “ Sonia, I love you,” 
which he had so long restrained, was uttered as he 
pressed the arm that rested on his own. She was 
not agitated. Perfectly pale, she gazed at him 
under the gas of the portico on which they had 
paused : “ Then deserve me. . .” she said, with a 
pretty enigmatical smile, a smile that gleamed upon 
her delicate white teeth. Tartarin was about to 
reply, to bind himself by an oath to some criminal 
madness when the porter of the hotel came up to 
him : 

“ There are persons waiting for you, upstairs. . . 
some gentlemen. . . They want you.” 

“Want me ! . . Outre ! . . What for?” And 
No. I of his folding series appeared before him : 
Tartarin captured, extradited. . . Of course he was 
frightened, but his attitude was heroic. Quickly 
detaching himself from Sonia: “Fly, save your- 
self! ” he said to her in a smothered voice. Then 
he mounted the stairs as if to the scaffold, his head 
high, his eyes proud, but so disturbed in mind that 
he was forced to cling to the baluster. 

As he entered the corridor, he saw persons 
17 


258 Tar tar in on the Alps . 

grouped at the farther end of it before his door, 
looking through the keyhole, rapping, and calling 
out: “ Hey! Tartarin. . .” 

He made two steps forward, and said, with 
parched lips : “ Is it I whom you are seeking, 
messieurs ? ” 

“ Te ! pardi , yes, my president ! . 

And a little old man, alert and wiry, dressed in 
gray, and apparently bringing on his coat, his hat, 
his gaiters and his long and pendent moustache all 
the dust of his native town, fell upon the neck of 
the hero and rubbed against his smooth fat cheeks 
the withered leathery skin of the retired captain of 
equipment. 

“Bravida! . . not possible ! . . Excourbanies 
too ! . . and who is that over there ? . 

A bleating answered : “ Dear ma-a-aster ! . 

and the pupil advanced, banging against the wall a 
sort of long fishing-rod with a packet at one end 
wrapped in gray paper, and oilcloth tied round it 
with string. 

“ Hey! ve ! why it’s Pascalon. . . Embrace me, 
little one. . . What’s that you are carrying? . . Put 
it down. . 

“ The paper. . . take off the paper ! . whispered 
Bravida. The youth undid the roll with a rapid 
hand and the Tarasconese banner was displayed to 
the eyes of the amazed Tartarin. 

The delegates took off their hats. 

“President” — the voice of Bravida trembled 
solemnly — “ you asked for the banner and we have 
brought it, ti! " 


259 


Memorable Dialogue . 

The president opened a pair of eyes as round as 
apples : “ I ! I asked for it ? ” 

“What! you did not ask for it? Bezuquet said 

>) 

so. 

“Yes, yes, certainemain. . said Tartarin, sud- 
denly enlightened by the mention of Bezuquet. 
He understood all and guessed the rest, and, 
tenderly moved by the ingenious lie of the apoth- 
ecary to recall him to a sense of duty and honour, 
he choked, and stammered in his short beard : 
“ Ah ! my children, how kind you are ! What good 
you have done me ! ” 

“ Vive le prtsidain !" yelped Pascalon, bran- 
dishing the oriflamme. Excourbanies’ gong re- 
sponded, rolling its war-cry (“ Ha ! ha ! ha ! fen cU 
brut. . .”) to the very cellars of the hotel. Doors 
opened, inquisitive heads protruded on every floor 
and then disappeared, alarmed, before that standard 
and the dark and hairy men who were roaring 
singular words and tossing their arms in the air. 
Never had the peaceable Hotel Jungfrau been 
subjected to such a racket. 

“ Come into my room,” said Tartarin, rather 
disconcerted. He was feeling about in the dark- 
ness to find matches when an authoritative rap on 
the door made it open of itself to admit the con- 
sequential, yellow, and puffy face of the innkeeper 
Meyer. He was about to enter, but stopped short 
before the darkness of the room, and said with 
closed teeth: 

“Try to keep quiet ... or I ’ll have you taken 
up by the police. . .” 


260 Tar tar in on the Alps. 

A grunt as of wild bulls issued from the shadow 
at that brutal term “ taken up.” The hotel-keeper 
recoiled one step, but added : “ It is known who 
you are ; they have their eye upon you ; for my 
part, I don’t want any more such persons in my 
house ! . 

“Monsieur Meyer,” said Tartarin, gently, polite- 
ly, but very firmly. . . “ Send me my bill. . . 

These gentlemen and myself start to-morrow 
morning for the Jungfrau.” 

O native soil ! O little country within a great 
one ! by only hearing the Tarasconese accent, 
quivering still with the air of that beloved land 
beneath the azure folds of its banner, behold Tar- 
tarin, delivered from love and its snares and restored 
to his friends, his mission, his glory. 

And now, zou ! 


At the “ Faithful Chamois ” 


261 


IX. 

At the “ Faithful Chamois A 

The next day it was charming, that trip on foot 
from Interlaken to Grindelwald, where they were, 
in passing, to take guides for the Little Scheideck; 
charming, that triumphal march of the P. C. A., 
restored to his trappings and mountain habiliments, 
leaning on one side on the lean little shoulder of 
Commander Bravida, and on the other, the robust 
arm of Excourbanies, proud, both of them, to be 
nearest to him, to support their dear president, to 
carry his ice-axe, his knapsack, his alpenstock, 
while sometimes before, sometimes behind or on 
their flanks the fanatical Pascalon gambolled like 
a puppy, his banner duly rolled up into a package 
to avoid the tumultuous scenes of the night before. 

The gayety of his companions, the sense of duty 
accomplished, the Jungfrau all white upon the 
sky, over there, like a vapour — nothing short of 
all this could have made the hero forget what he 
left behind him, for ever and ever it may be, and 
without farewell. However, at the last houses of 
Interlaken his eyelids swelled and, still walking on, 
he poured out his feelings in turn into the bosom 
of Excourbanies: “Listen, Spiridion,” or that of 
Bravida: “You know me, Placide. . !* For, by 


262 


Tartarin on the Alps . 

an irony on nature, that indomitable warrior was 
called Placide, and that rough buffalo, with all his 
instincts material, Spiridion. 

Unhappily, the Tarasconese race, more gallant 
than sentimental, never takes its love-affairs very 
seriously. “ Whoso loses a woman and ten sous, 
is to be pitied about the money. . replied the 
sententious Placide to Tartarin’s tale, and Spiridion 
thought exactly like him. As for the innocent 
Pascalon, he was horribly afraid of women, and 
reddened to the ears when the name of the Little 
Scheideck was uttered before him, thinking some 
lady of flimsy morals was referred to. The poor 
lover was therefore reduced to keep his confi- 
dences to himself, and console himself alone — 
which, after all, is the surest way. 

But what grief could have resisted the attractions 
of the way through that narrow, deep and sombre 
valley, where they walked on the banks of a wind- 
ing river all white with foam, rumbling with an 
echo like thunder among the pine-woods which 
skirted both its shores. 

The Tarasconese delegation, their heads in the 
air, advanced with a sort of religious awe and ad- 
miration, like the comrades of Sinbad the Sailor 
when they stood before the mangoes, the cotton- 
trees, and all the giant flora of the Indian coasts. 
Knowing nothing but their own little bald and 
stony mountains they had never imagined there 
could be so many' trees together or such tall ones. 

“ That is nothing, as yet. . . wait till you see the 
Jungfrau,” said the P. C. A., who enjoyed their 


At the “ Faithful Chamois 263 

amazement and felt himself magnified in their 
eyes. 

At the same time, as if to brighten the scene 
and humanize its solemn note, cavalcades went by 
them, great landaus going at full speed, with veils 
floating from the doorways where curious heads 
leaned out to look at the delegation pressing round 
its president. From point to point along the road- 
side were booths spread with knick-knacks of 
carved wood, while young girls, stiff in their laced 
bodices, their striped skirts and broad-brimmed 
straw hats, were offering bunches of strawberries 
and edelweiss. Occasionally, an Alpine horn sent 
among the mountains its melancholy ritornello, 
swelling, echoing from gorge to gorge, and slowly 
diminishing, like a cloud that dissolves into 
vapour. 

“ ’T is fine, ’t is like an organ,” murmured Pasca- 
lon, his eyes moist, in ecstasy, like the stained-glass 
saint of a church window. Excourbanies roared, 
undiscouraged, and the echoes repeated, till sight 
and sound were lost, his Tarasconese intonations: 
“ Ha! ha ! ha ! fen ctt brut ! ” 

But people grow weary after marching for two 
hours through the same sort of decorative scene, 
however well it may be organized, green on blue, 
glaciers in the distance, and all things sonorous as 
a musical clock. The dash of the torrents, the 
singers in triplets, the sellers of carved objects, 
the little flower-girls, soon became intolerable to 
our friends, — above all, the dampness, the steam 
rising in this species of tunnel, the soaked soil 


264 Tartarin on the Alps . 

full of water-plants, where never had the sun 
penetrated. 

“ It is enough to give one a pleurisy,” said 
Bravida, turning up the collar of his coat. Then 
weariness set in, hunger, ill-humour. They could 
find no inn ; and presently Excourbanies and 
Bravida, having stuffed themselves with straw- 
berries, began to suffer cruelly. Pascalon himself, 
that angel, bearing not only the banner, but the 
ice-axe, the knapsack, the alpenstock, of which the 
others had rid themselves basely upon him, even 
Pascalon had lost his gayety and ceased his lively 
gambolling. 

At a turn of the road, after they had just crossed 
the Lutschine by one of those covered bridges that 
are found in regions of deep snow, a loud blast on 
a horn greeted them. 

“ Ah ! vat, enough ! . . enough ! ” howled the 
exasperated delegation. 

The man, a giant, ensconced by the roadside, let 
go an enormous trumpet of pine wood reaching to 
the ground and ending there in a percussion-box, 
which gave to this prehistoric instrument the so- 
norousness of a piece of artillery. 

“ Ask him if he knows of an inn,” said the pres- 
ident to Excourbanies, who, with enormous cheek 
and a small pocket dictionary undertook, now that 
they were in German Switzerland, to serve the 
delegation as interpreter. But before he could pull 
out his dictionary the man replied in very good 
French : 

“An inn, messieurs? Why certainly. . . The 


At the “ Faithful Chamois 265 

‘ Faithful Chamois’ is close by; allow me to show 
you the place.” 

On the way, he told them he had lived in Paris 
for several years, as commissionnaire at the corner 
of the rue Vivienne. 

“ Another employe of the Company, parb feu ! ” 
thought Tartarin, leaving his friends to be sur- 
prised. However, Bompard’s comrade was very 
useful, for, in spite of its French sign, Le Chamois 
Fidele , the people of the “ Faithful Chamois ” 
could speak nothing but a horrible German patois. 

Presently, the Tarasconese delegation, seated 
around an enormous potato omelet, recovered 
both the health and the good-humour as essential 
to Southerners as the sun of their skies. They 
drank deep, they ate solidly. After many toasts 
to the president and his coming ascension, Tarta- 
rin, who had puzzled over the tavern-sign ever 
since his arrival, inquired of the horn-player, who 
was breaking a crust in a corner of the room : 

“So you have chamois here, it seems? .. I 
thought there were none left in Switzerland.” 

The man winked : 

“ There are not many, but enough to let you see 
them now and then.” 

“Shoot them, is what he wants, vP!” said Pas- 
calon, full of enthusiasm ; “ never did the president 
miss a shot.” 

Tartarin regretted that he had not brought his 
carbine. 

“ Wait a minute, and I ’ll speak to the landlord.” 

It so happened that the landlord was an old 


266 Tar tar in on the Alps. 

chamois hunter; he offered his gun, his powder, 
his buck-shot, and even himself as guide to a haunt 
he knew. 

“Forward, zou !” cried Tartarin, granting to 
his happy Alpinists the opportunity to show off 
the prowess of their chief. It was only a slight 
delay, after all; the Jungfrau lost nothing by 
waiting. 

Leaving the inn at the back, they had only to 
walk through an orchard, no bigger than the gar- 
den of a station-master, before they found them- 
selves on a mountain, gashed with great crevasses, 
among the fir-trees and underbrush. 

The innkeeper took the advance, and the Taras- 
conese presently saw him far up the height; waving 
his arms and throwing stones, no doubt to rouse 
the chamois. They rejoined him with much pain 
and difficulty over that rocky slope, hard especially 
to persons who had just been eating and were as 
little used to climbing as these good Alpinists of 
Tarascon. The air was heavy, moreover, with a 
tempest breath that was slowly rolling the clouds 
along the summits above their heads. 

“ Boufre !” groaned Bravida. 

Excourbanies growled : “ Outre ! ” 

“ What shall I be made to say ! ” added the 
gentle, bleating Pascalon. 

But the guide having, by a violent gesture, or- 
dered them to hold their tongues, and not to stir, 
Tartarin remarked, “ Never speak under arms,” 
with a sternness that rebuked every one, although 
the president alone had a weapon. They stood 


At the “ Faithful Chamois .” 267 

stock still, holding their breaths. Suddenly, Pas- 
calon cried out: 

“ V£ ! the chamois, vi ! . .” 

About three hundred feet above them, the up- 
right horns, the light buff coat and the four feet 
gathered together of the pretty creature stood de- 
fined like a carved image at the edge of the rock, 
looking at them fearlessly. Tartarin brought his 
piece to his shoulder methodically, as his habit 
was, and was just about to fire when the chamois 
disappeared. 

“ It is your fault,” said the Commander to 
Pascalon . . . “ you whistled . . . and that fright- 
ened him.” 

“ I whistled ! . . I? ” 

“ Then it was Spiridion. . .” 

“ Ah, vat ! never in my life.” 

Nevertheless, they had all heard a whistle, stri- 
dent, prolonged. The president settled the ques- 
tion by relating how the chamois, at the approach 
of enemies, gives a sharp danger signal through 
the nostrils. That devil of a Tartarin knew 
everything about this kind of hunt, as about 
all others ! 

At the call of their guide they started again; 
but the acclivity became steeper and steeper, the 
rocks more ragged, with bogs between them to 
right and left. Tartarin kept the lead, turning 
constantly to help the delegates, holding out his 
hand or his carbine: “Your hand, your hand, 
if you don’t mind,” cried honest Bravida, who was 
very much afraid of loaded weapons. 


268 Tartarin on the Alps . 

Another sign of the guide, another stop of the 
delegation, their noses in the air. 

“ I felt a drop ! ” murmured the Commander, 
very uneasy. At the same instant the thunder 
growled, but louder than the thunder roared the 
voice of Excourbanies : “ Fire, Tartarin ! ” and 

the chamois bounded past them, crossing the 
ravine like a golden flash, too quickly for Tartarin 
to take aim, but not so fast that they did not 
hear that whistle of his nostrils. 

“ I ’ll have him yet, coquin de sort! ” cried the 
president, but the delegates protested. Excour- 
banies, becoming suddenly very sour, demanded 
if he had sworn to exterminate them. 

“ Dear ma-a-aster,” bleated Pascalon, timidly, 
“ I have heard say that chamois if you corner 
them in abysses turn at bay against the hunter 
and are very dangerous.” 

“ Then don’t let us corner him ! ” said Bravida 
hastily. 

Tartarin called them milksops. But while they 
were arguing, suddenly, abruptly, they all disap- 
peared from one another’s gaze in a warm thick 
vapour that smelt of sulphur, through which they 
sought each other, calling: 

“Hey! Tartarin.” 

“Are you there, Placide?” 

“ Ma-a-as-ter ! ” 

“ Keep cool ! Keep cool ! ” 

A regular panic. Then a gust of wind broke 
through the mist and whirled it away like a torn 
veil clinging to the briers, through which a zigzag 


At the “ Faithful Chamois 269 

flash of lightning fell at their feet with a frightful 
clap of thunder. “ My cap ! ” cried Spiridion, as 
the tempest bared his head, its hairs erect and 
crackling with electric sparks. They were in 
the very heart of the storm, the forge itself of 
Vulcan. Bravida was the first to fly, at full speed, 
the rest of the delegation flew behind him, when 
a cry from the president, who thought of every- 
thing, stopped them: 

“Thunder! . . beware of the thunder! . . ” 

At any rate, outside of the very real danger of 
which he warned them, there was no possibility 
of running on those steep and gullied slopes, now 
transformed into torrents, into cascades, by the 
pouring rain. The return was awful, by slow 
steps under that crazy cliff, amid the sharp, short 
flashes of lightning followed by explosions, slip- 
ping, falling, and forced at times to halt. Pascalon 
crossed himself and invoked aloud, as at Tarascon : 
“ Sainte Marthe and Sainte Helene, Sainte Marie- 
Madeleine,” while Excourbani&s swore: “ Coquin 
de sort! ” and Bravida, the rearguard, looked back 
in trepidation : 

“ What the devil is that behind us ? . . It is 
galloping ... it is whistling . . . there, it has 
stopped . . 

The idea of a furious chamois flinging itself upon 
its hunters was in the mind of the old warrior. In 
a low voice, in order not to alarm the others, he 
communicated his fears to Tartarin, who bravely 
took his place as the rearguard and marched along, 
soaked to the skin, his head high, with that mute 


270 Tartarin on the Alps, 

determination which is given by the imminence of 
danger. But when he reached the inn and saw his 
dear Alpinists under shelter, drying their wet things, 
which smoked around a huge porcelain stove in 
a first floor chamber, to which rose an odour of 
grog already ordered, the president shivered and 
said, looking very pale: “I believe I have taken 
cold.” 

“ Taken cold ! ” No question now of starting 
again; the delegation asked only for rest. Quick, 
a bed was warmed, they hurried the hot wine grog, 
and after his second glass the president felt 
throughout his comfort-loving body a warmth, a 
tingling that augured well. Two pillows at his 
back, a “ plumeau ” on his feet, his muffler round 
his head, he experienced a delightful sense of 
well-being in listening to the roaring of the storm, 
inhaling that good pine odour of the rustic little 
room with its wooden walls and leaden panes, and 
in looking at his dear Alpinists, gathered, glass in 
hand, around his bed in the anomalous character 
given to their Gallic, Roman or Saracenic types by 
the counterpanes, curtains, and carpets in which 
they were bundled while their own clothes steamed 
before the stove. Forgetful of himself, he 
questioned each of them in a sympathetic voice: 

“Are you well, Placide? . . Spiridion, you 
seemed to be suffering just now? . .” 

No, Spiridion suffered no longer, all that had 
passed away on seeing the president so ill. 
Bravida, who adapted moral truths to the proverbs 
of his nation, added cynically: “Neighbour’s ill 


271 


At the “ Faithful Chamois ” 

comforts, and even cures.” Then they talked of 
their hunt, exciting one another with the recollec- 
tion of certain dangerous episodes, such as the 
moment when the animal turned upon them 
furiously; and without complicity of lying, in fact, 
most ingenuously, they fabricated the fable they 
afterwards related on their return to Tarascon. 

Suddenly, Pascalon, who had been sent in search 
of another supply of grog, reappeared in terror, 
one arm out of the blue-flowered curtain that he 
gathered about him with the chaste gesture of a 
Polyeucte. He was more than a second before he 
could articulate, in a whisper, breathlessly: “The 
chamois ! . 

“ Well, what of the chamois? . 

“ He ’s down there, in the kitchen . . . warming 
himself. . 

“ Ah ! vat. . .” 

“You are joking. . 

“ Suppose you go and see, Placide.” 

Bravida hesitated. Excourbanies descended on 
the tips of his toes, but returned almost immedi- 
ately, his face convulsed. . . More and more 
astounding! . . the chamois was drinking grog. 

They certainly owed it to him, poor beast, after 
the wild run he had been made to take on the 
mountain, dispatched and recalled by his master, 
who, as a usual thing, put him through his evolu- 
tions in the house, to show to tourists how easily a 
chamois could be trained. 

“ It is overwhelming ! ” said Bravida, making no 
further effort at comprehension ; as for Tartarin, he 


272 Tartarin on the Alps . 

dragged the muffler over his eyes like a nightcap 
to hide from the delegates the soft hilarity that 
overcame him at encountering wherever he went 
the dodges and the performers of Bompard’s 
Switzerland. 


The Ascension of the Jungfrau . 273 


X. 

The ascension of the Jungfrau. Vi 1 the oxen. The 
Kennedy crampons will not work. Nor the reed-lamp 
either. Apparition of masked men at the chalet of the 
Alpine Club. The president in a crevasse. On the 
summit. Tartarin becomes a god. 

Great influx, that morning, to the H6tel Belle- 
vue on the Little Scheideck. In spite of the rain 
and the squalls, tables had been laid outside in the 
shelter of the veranda, amid a great display of 
alpenstocks, flasks, telescopes, cuckoo clocks in 
carved wood, so that tourists could, while break- 
fasting, contemplate at a depth of six thousand 
feet before them the wonderful valley of Grindel- 
wald on the left, that of Lauterbrunnen on the 
right, and opposite, within gunshot as it seemed, 
the immaculate, grandiose slopes of the Jungfrau, 
its nives , glaciers, all that reverberating whiteness 
which illumines the air about it, making glasses 
more transparent, and linen whiter. 

But now, for a time, general attention was at- 
tracted to a noisy, bearded caravan, which had just 
arrived on horse, mule, and donkey-back, also in a 
chaise a porteurs y who had prepared themselves to 
climb the mountain by a copious breakfast, and 
were now in a state of hilarity, the racket of which 
18 


274 Tartarin on the Alps. 

contrasted with the bored and solemn airs of 
the very distinguished Rices and Prunes collected 
on the Scheideck, such as: Lord Chipendale, 
the Belgian senator and his family, the Austro- 
Hungarian diplomat, and several others. It would 
certainly have been supposed that the whole party 
of these bearded men sitting together at table 
were about to attempt the ascension, for one and 
all were busy with preparations for departure, ris- 
ing, rushing about to give directions to the guides, 
inspecting the provisions, and calling to each 
other from end to end of the terrace in stentorian 
tones. 

“ Hey ! Placide, ve ! the cooking-pan, see if it 
is in the knapsack ! . . Don’t forget the reed- 
lamp, an mouain .” 

Not until the actual departure took place was it 
seen that, of all the caravan, only one was to make 
the ascension: but which one? 

“Children, are we ready?” said the good Tar- 
tarin in a joyous, triumphant voice, in which not a 
shade of anxiety trembled at the possible dangers 
of the trip — his last doubt as to the Company’s 
manipulation of Switzerland being dissipated that 
very morning before the two glaciers of Grindel- 
wald each protected by a wicket and a turnstile, 
with this inscription “ Entrance to the glacier : one 
franc fifty.” 

He could, therefore, enjoy without anxiety this 
departure in apotheosis, the joy of feeling himself 
looked at, envied, admired by those bold little 
misses in boys’ caps who laughed at him so prettily 


The Ascension of the Jungfrau. 275 

on the Rigi-Kulm, and were now enthusiastically 
comparing his short person with the enormous 
mountain he was about to climb. One drew his 
portrait in her album, another sought the honour 
of touching his alpenstock. “ Tchemppegne ! . . 
Tchemppegne ! . .” called out of a sudden a tall, 
funereal Englishman with a brick-coloured skin, 
coming up to him, bottle and glass in hand. 
Then, after obliging the hero to drink with him : 

“ Lord Chipendale, sir . . . And you? ” 

“ Tartarin of Tarascon.” 

“ Oh ! yes . . . Tartarine . . . Capital name for 
a horse,” said the lord, who must have been one of 
those great turfmen across the Channel. 

The Austro-Hungarian diplomat also came to 
press the Alpinist’s hand between his mittens, 
remembering vaguely to have seen him some- 
where. “ Enchanted ! . . enchanted ! . . ” he enun- 
ciated several times, and then, not knowing how 
to get out of it, he added: “ My compliments to 
madame ...” his social formula for cutting short 
presentations. 

But the guides were impatient; they must reach 
before nightfall the hut of the Alpine Club, where 
they were to sleep for the first stage, and there was 
not a minute to lose. Tartarin felt it, saluted all 
with a circular gesture, smiled at the malicious 
misses, and then, in a voice of thunder, commanded : 

“ Pascalon, the banner ! ” 

It waved to the breeze ; the Southerners took off 
their hats, for they love theatricals at Tarascon; 
and at the cry, a score of times repeated : “ Long 


276 Tartarin on the Alps . 

live the president ! . ✓ Long live Tartarin ! . . Ah ! 
ah ! . . fen de brut ! . . ” the column moved off, the 
two guides in front carrying the knapsack, the pro- 
visions, and a supply of wood ; then came Pascalon 
bearing the oriflamme, and lastly the P. C. A. with 
the delegates who proposed to accompany him as 
far as the glacier of the Guggi. 

Thus deployed in procession, bearing its flap- 
ping flag along the sodden way beneath those bar- 
ren or snowy crests, the cortege vaguely recalled 
the funeral marches of an All Souls’ day in the 
country. 

Suddenly the Commander cried out, alarmed : 

“ VI ! those oxen ! ” 

Some cattle were now seen browsing the short 
grass in the hollows of the ground. The former 
captain of equipment had a nervous and quite 
insurmountable terror of those animals, and as he 
could not be left alone the delegation was forced 
to stop. Pascalon transmitted the standard to the 
guides. Then, with a last embrace, hasty injunc- 
tions, and one eye on the cows : 

“ Adieu, adieu, qul ! ” 

“No imprudence, .au mouain ...” they parted. 
As for proposing to the president to go up with 
him, no one even thought of it; ’twas so high, 
boufre ! And the nearer they came to it the higher 
it grew, the abysses were more abysmal, the peaks 
bristled up in a white chaos, which looked to be 
insurmountable. It was better to look at the 
ascension from the Scheideck. 

In all his life, naturally, the president of the Club 


The Ascension of the Jungfrau . 277 

of the Alpines had never set foot on a glacier. 
There is nothing of that sort on the mountainettes 
of Tarascon, little hills as balmy and dry as a 
packet of lavender; and yet the approaches to 
the Guggi gave him the impression of having 
already seen them, and wakened recollections of 
hunts in Provence at the end of the Camargue, 
near to the sea. The same turf always getting 
shorter and parched, as if seared by fire. Here 
and there were puddles of water, infiltrations of 
the ground betrayed by puny reeds, then came the 
moraine, like a sandy dune full of broken shells 
and cinders, and, far at the end, the glacier, with 
its blue-green waves crested with white and 
rounded in form, a silent, congealed ground-swell. 
The wind which came athwart it, whistling and 
strong, had the same biting, salubrious freshness 
as his own sea-breeze. 

“ No, thank you. . . I have my crampons ...” 
said Tartarin to the guide, who offered him woollen 
socks to draw on over his boots ; “ Kennedy 
crampons . . . perfected . . . very convenient ...” 
He shouted, as if to a deaf person, in order to make 
himself understood by Christian Inebnit, who knew 
no more French than his comrade Kaufmann; and 
then the P. C. A. sat down upon the moraine 
and strapped on a species of sandal with three 
enormous and very strong iron spikes. He had 
practised them a hundred times, these Kennedy 
crampons, manoeuvring them in the garden of the 
baobab; nevertheless, the present effect was un- 
expected. Beneath the weight of the hero the 


278 Tar tar in on the Alps . 

spikes were driven into the ice with such force 
that all efforts to withdraw them were vain. Be- 
hold him, therefore, nailed to the glacier, sweat- 
ing, swearing, making with arms and alpenstock 
most desperate gymnastics and reduced finally to 
shouting for his guides, who had gone forward, 
convinced that they had to do with an experienced 
Alpinist. 

Under the impossibility of uprooting him, they 
undid the straps, and, the crampons, abandoned in 
the ice, being replaced by a pair of knitted socks, 
the president continued his way, not without much 
difficulty and fatigue. Unskilful in holding his 
stick, his legs stumbled over it, then its iron point 
skated and dragged him along if he leaned upon 
it too heavily. He tried the ice-axe — still harder 
to manoeuvre, the swell of the glacier increasing 
by degrees, and pressing up, one above another, 
its motionless waves with all the appearance of a 
furious and petrified tempest. 

Apparent immobility only, for hollow crackings, 
subterranean gurgles, enormous masses of ice dis- 
placing themselves slowly, as if moved by the 
machinery of a stage, indicated the inward life of 
this frozen mass and its treacherous elements. To 
the eyes of our Alpinist, wherever he cast his axe 
crevasses were opening, bottomless pits, where 
masses of ice in fragments rolled indefinitely. The 
hero fell repeatedly ; once to his middle in one of 
those greenish gullies, where his broad shoulders 
alone kept him from going to the bottom. 

On seeing him so clumsy, and yet so tranquil, 


The Ascension of the Jungfrau . 279 

so sure of himself, laughing, singing, gesticulating, 
as he did while breakfasting, the guides imagined 
that Swiss champagne had made an impression 
upon him. What else could they suppose of the 
president of an Alpine Club, a renowned ascen- 
sionist, of whom his friends spoke only with 
“ Ahs ! ” and exultant gestures. After taking him 
each by the arm with the respectful firmness of 
policemen putting into a carriage an overcome 
heir to a title, they endeavoured, by the help of 
monosyllables and gestures, to rouse his mind to a 
sense of the dangers of the route, the necessity of 
reaching the hut before nightfall, with threats of 
crevasses, cold, avalanches. Finally, with the point 
of their ice-picks they showed him the enormous 
accumulation of ice, of nM not yet transformed 
into glacier rising before them to the zenith in 
blinding repetition. 

But the worthy Tartarin laughed at all that: 
“ Ha ! vat ! crevasses ! . . Ha ! vai ! those ava- 
lanches ! . . ” and he burst out laughing, winked 
his eye, and prodded their sides with his elbows to 
let them know they could not fool him, for he was 
in the secret of the comedy. 

The guides at last ended by making merry with 
the Tarasconese songs, and when they rested a 
moment on a solid block to let their monsieur get 
his breath, they yodelled in the Swiss way, though 
not too loudly, for fear of avalanches, nor very 
long, for time was getting on. They knew the 
coming of night by the sharper cold, but especially 
by the singular change in hue of these snows and 


280 Tartarin on the Alps . 

ice-packs, heaped-up, overhanging, which always 
keep, even under misty skies, a rainbow tinge of 
colour until the daylight fades, rising higher and 
higher to the vanishing summits, where the snows 
take on the livid, spectral tints of the lunar uni- 
verse. Pallor, petrifaction, silence, death itself. 
And the good Tartarin, so warm, so living, was 
beginning to lose his liveliness when the distant 
cry of a bird, the note of a “ snow partridge ” 
brought back before his eyes a baked landscape, a 
copper-coloured setting sun, and a band of Taras- 
conese sportsmen, mopping their faces, seated on 
their empty game-bags, in the slender shade of an 
olive-tree. The recollection was a comfort to him. 

At the same moment Kaufmann pointed to 
something that looked like a faggot of wood on 
the snow. ’T was the hut. It seemed as if they 
could get to it in a few strides, but, in point of fact, 
it took a good half-hour’s walking. One of the 
guides went on ahead to light the fire. Darkness 
had now come on ; the north wind rattled on the 
cadaverous way, and Tartarin, no longer paying 
attention to anything, supported by the stout arm 
of the mountaineer, stumbled and bounded along 
without a dry thread on him in spite of the falling 
temperature. All of a sudden a flame shot up 
before him, together with an appetizing smell of 
onion soup. 

They were there. 

Nothing can be more rudimentary than these 
halting-places established on the mountains by the 
Alpine Club of Switzerland. A single room, in 


The Ascension of the Jungfrau . 281 

which an inclined plane of hard wood serves as a 
bed and takes up nearly all the space, leaving but 
little for the stove and the long table, screwed to 
the floor like the benches that are round it. The 
table was already laid ; three bowls, pewter spoons, 
the reed-lamp to heat the coffee, two cans of Chi- 
cago preserved meats already opened. Tartarin 
thought the dinner delicious although the fumes of 
the onion soup infected the atmosphere, and the 
famous spirit-lamp, which ought to have made its 
pint of coffee in three minutes, refused to perform 
its functions. 

At the dessert he sang ; that was his only means 
of conversing with his guides. He sang them the 
airs of his native land : La Tarasque , and Les Filles 
d' Avignon. To which the guides responded with 
local songs in German patois : Mi Vater isch en 
Appenzeller . . . aou . . . aou. . . Worthy fellows 
with hard, weather-beaten features as if cut from 
the rock, beards in the hollows that looked like 
moss and those clear eyes, used to great spaces, 
like the eyes of sailors. The same sensation of 
the sea and the open, which he had felt just now 
on approaching Guggi, Tartarin again felt here, in 
presence of these mariners of the glacier in this 
close cabin, low and smoky, the regular forecastle 
of a ship ; in the dripping of the snow from the 
roof as it melted with the warmth; in the great 
gusts of wind, shaking everything, cracking the 
boards, fluttering the flame of the lamp, and 
falling abruptly into vast, unnatural silence, like 
the end of the world. 


282 Tar tar in on the Alps . 

They had just finished dinner when heavy steps 
upon the ringing path and voices were heard 
approaching. Violent blows with the butt end of 
some weapon shook the door. Tartarin, greatly 
excited, looked at his guides ... A nocturnal 
attack on these heights ! . . The blows redoubled. 
“Who goes there?” cried the hero, jumping for 
his ice-axe; but already the hut was invaded by 
two gigantic Yankees, in white linen masks, their 
clothing soaked with snow and sweat, and behind 
them guides, porters, a whole caravan, on its return 
from ascending the Jungfrau. 

“ You are welcome, milords,” said Tartarin, with 
a liberal, dispensing gesture, of which the milords 
showed not the slightest need in making themselves 
free of everything. In a trice the table was sur- 
rounded, the dishes removed, the bowls and spoons 
rinsed in hot water for the use of the new arrivals 
(according to established custom in Alpine huts) ; 
the boots of the milords smoked before the stove, 
while they themselves, bare-footed, their feet 
wrapped in straw, were sprawling at their ease 
before a fresh onion soup. 

Father and son, these two Americans; two red- 
haired giants, with heads of pioneers, hard and self- 
reliant. One of them, the elder, had two dilated 
eyes, almost white, in a bloated, sun-burned, fis- 
sured face, and presently, by the hesitating way in 
which he groped for his bowl and spoon, and the 
care with which his son looked after him, Tartarin 
became aware that this was the famous blind 
Alpinist of whom he had been told, not believing 


The Ascension of the Jungfrau . 283 

the tale, at the Hotel Bellevue ; a celebrated 
climber in his youth, who now, in spite of his sixty 
years and his infirmity, was going over with his 
son the scenes of his former exploits. He had 
already done the Wetterhorn and the Jungfrau, 
and was intending to attack the Matterhorn and the 
Mont Blanc, declaring that the air upon summits, 
that glacial breath with its taste of snow, caused 
him inexpressible joy, and a perfect recall of his 
lost vigour. 

“ Diffdremment ,” asked Tartarin of one of the 
porters, for the Yankees were not communicative, 
and answered only by a “ yes ” or a “ no ” to all 
his advances “ difftremment , inasmuch as he can’t 
see, how does he manage at the dangerous places? ” 

“Oh! he has got the mountaineer’s foot; 
besides, his son watches over him, and places his 
heels. . . And it is a fact that he has never had an 
accident.” 

“ All the more because accidents in Switzerland 
are never very terrible, qu£i ” With a compre- 
hending smile to the puzzled porter, Tartarin, more 
and more convinced that the “ whole thing was 
blague ,” stretched himself out on the plank rolled 
in his blanket, the muffler up to his eyes, and went 
to sleep, in spite of the light, the noise, the smoke 
of the pipes and the smell of the onion soup. . . 

“ Mosste ! . . Mossid ! . 

One of his guides was shaking him for departure, 
while the other poured boiling coffee into the 
bowls. A few oaths and the groans of sleepers 


284 Tartarin on the Alps, 

whom Tartarin crushed on his way to the table, 
and then to the door. Abruptly he found himself 
outside, stung by the cold, dazzled by the fairy-like 
reflections of the moon upon that white expanse, 
those motionless congealed cascades, where the 
shadow of the peaks, the aiguilles , the se'racs, were 
sharply defined in the densest black. No longer 
the sparkling chaos of the afternoon, nor the livid 
rising upward of the gray tints of evening, but a 
strange irregular city of darksome alleys, mysteri- 
ous passages, doubtful corners between marble 
monuments and crumbling ruins — a dead city, 
with broad desert spaces. 

Two o’clock ! By walking well they could be 
at the top by mid-day. “ Zou ! ” said the P. C. A., 
very lively, and dashing forward, as if to the assault. 
But his guides stopped him. They must be roped 
for the dangerous passages. 

“ Ah ! vaiy roped ! . . Very good, if that amuses 
you.” 

Christian Inebnit took the lead, leaving twelve 
feet of rope between himself and Tartarin, who 
was separated by the same length from the second 
guide who carried the provisions and the banner. 
The hero kept his footing better than he did the 
day before ; and confidence in the Company must 
indeed have been strong, for he did not take seri- 
ously the difficulties of the path — if we can call 
a path the terrible ridge of ice along which they 
now advanced with precaution, a ridge but a few 
feet wide and so slippery that Christian was forced 
to cut steps with his ice-axe. 


The Ascension of the Jungfrau. 285 

The line of the ridge sparkled between two 
depths of abysses on either side. But if you 
think that Tartarin was frightened, not at all ! 
Scarcely did he feel the little quiver of the cuticle 
of a freemason novice when subjected to his 
opening test. He placed his feet most precisely 
in the holes which the first guide cut for them, 
doing all that he saw the guide do, as tranquil as 
he was in the garden of the baobab when he prac- 
tised around the margin of the pond, to the terror 
of the goldfish. At one place the ridge became 
so narrow that he was forced to sit astride of it, 
and while they went slowly forward, helping them- 
selves with their hands, a loud detonation echoed 
up, on their right, from beneath them. “ Ava- 
lanche ! ” said Inebnit, keeping motionless till the 
repercussion of the echoes, numerous, grandiose, 
filling the sky, died away at last in a long roll of 
thunder in the far distance, where the final detona- 
tion was lost. After which, silence once more 
covered all as with a winding-sheet. 

The ridge passed, they went up a nevt the 
slope of which was rather gentle but its length 
interminable. They had been climbing nearly an 
hour when a slender pink line began to define the 
summits far, far above their heads. It was the 
dawn, thus announcing itself. Like a true South- 
erner, enemy to shade, Tartarin trolled out his 
liveliest song : 

Grand souleu de la Provenqo 
Gai compaire dou mistrau — 


286 Tar tar in on the Alps . 

A violent shake of the rope from before and 
behind stopped him short in the middle of his 
couplet. “ Hush . . . Hush . . said Inebnit, point- 
ing with his ice-axe to the threatening line of 
gigantic sJracs on their tottering foundations 
which the slightest jar might send thundering 
down the steep. But Tartarin knew what that 
meant ; he was not the man to ply with any such 
tales, and he went on singing in a resounding 
voice : 

Tu qu ’ escoulh la Durango 

Commo tin flot cU vin de Crau. 

The guides, seeing that they could not silence 
their crazy singer, made a great detour to get 
away from the seracs, and presently were stopped 
by an enormous crevasse, the glaucous green sides 
of which were lighted, far down their depths, by 
the first furtive rays of the dawn. What is called 
in Switzerland “ a snow bridge” spanned it; but 
so slight was it, so fragile, that they had scarcely 
advanced a step before it crumbled away in a 
cloud of white dust, dragging down the leading 
guide and Tartarin, hanging to the rope which 
Rodolphe Kaufmann, the rear guide, was alone left 
to hold, clinging with all the strength of his moun- 
tain vigour to his pick-axe, driven deeply into the 
ice. But although he was able to hold the two 
men suspended in the gulf he had not enough 
force to draw them up and he remained, crouch- 
ing on the snow, his teeth clenched, his muscles 


The Ascension of the Jungfrau . 287 

straining, and too far from the crevasse to see what 
was happening. 

Stunned at first by the fall, and blinded by snow, 
Tartarin waved his arms and legs at random, like a 
puppet out of order ; then, drawing himself up by 
means of the rope, he hung suspended over the 
abyss, his nose against its icy side, which his 
breath polished, in the attitude of a plumber in 
the act of soldering a waste-pipe. He saw the sky 
above him growing paler and the stars disappear- 
ing; below he could fathom the gulf and its opaque 
shadows, from which rose a chilling breath. 

Nevertheless, his first bewilderment over, he 
recovered his self-possession and his fine good- 
humour. 

“ Hey ! up there ! pkre Kaufmann, don’t leave us 
to mildew here, quJ ! there ’s a draught all round, 
and besides, this cursed rope is cutting our loins.” 

Kaufmann was unable to answer; to have 
unclenched his teeth would have lessened his 
strength. But Inebnit shouted from below: 

“Mossie . . . Mossie . . . ice-axe . . .” for his own 
had been lost in the fall; and, the heavy imple- 
ment being now passed from the hands of Tartarin 
to those of the guide (with difficulty, owing to the 
space that separated the two hanged ones), the 
mountaineer used it to make notches in the ice-wall 
before him, into which he could fasten both hands 
and feet. 

The weight of the rope being thus lessened by at 
least one-half, Rodolphe Kaufmann, with carefully 
calculated vigour and infinite precautions, began to 


288 Tartarin on the Alps . 

draw up the president, whose Tarasconese cap ap- 
peared at last at the edge of the crevasse. Inebnit 
followed him in turn and the two mountaineers 
met again with that effusion of brief words which, 
in persons of limited elocution, follows great dan- 
gers. Both were trembling with their effort, and 
Tartarin passed them his flask of kirsch to steady 
their legs. He himself was nimble and calm, and 
while he shook himself free of snow he hummed 
his song under the nose of his wondering guides, 
beating time with his foot to the measure : 

“ Brav . . . brav . . . Franzose . . .” said Kauf- 
mann, tapping him on the shoulder; to which 
Tartarin answered with his fine laugh : 

“ You rogue ! I knew very well there was no 
danger . . .” 

Never within the memory of guides was there 
seen such an Alpinist. 

They started again, climbing perpendicularly a 
sort of gigantic wall of ice some thousand feet 
high, in which they were forced to cut steps as 
they went along, which took much time. The man 
of Tarascon began to feel his strength give way 
under the brilliant sun which flooded the whiteness 
of the landscape and was all the more fatiguing to 
his eyes because he had dropped his green spec- 
tacles into the crevasse. Presently, a dreadful 
sense of weakness seized him, that mountain sick- 
ness which produces the same effects as sea-sick- 
ness. Exhausted, his head empty, his legs flaccid, 
he stumbled and lost his feet, so that the guides 
were forced to grasp him, one on each side, sup- 


The Ascension of the Jungfrau . 289 

porting and hoisting him to the top of that wall of 
ice. Scarcely three hundred feet now separated 
them from the summit of the Jungfrau; but al- 
though the snow was hard and bore them, and the 
path much easier, this last stage took an almost 
interminable time, the fatigue and the suffocation 
of the P. C. A. increasing all the while. 

Suddenly the mountaineers loosed their hold 
upon him, and waving their caps began to yodel in 
a transport of joy. They were there ! This spot 
in immaculate space, this white crest, somewhat 
rounded, was the goal, and for that good Tartarin 
the end of the somnambulic torpor in which he had 
wandered for an hour or more. 

“ Scheideck ! Scheideck ! ” shouted the guides, 
showing him far, far below, on a verdant plateau 
emerging from the mists of the valley, the Hotel 
Bellevue about the size of a thimble. 

Thence to where they stood lay a wondrous 
panorama, an ascent of fields of gilded snow, 
oranged by the sun, or else of a deep, cold blue, a 
piling up of mounds of ice, fantastically structured 
into towers, fitches, aiguilles , aretes, and gigantic 
heaps, under which one could well believe that the 
lost megatherium or mastodon lay sleeping. All 
the tints of the rainbow played there and met in 
the bed of vast glaciers rolling down their immov- 
able cascades, crossed by other little frozen tor- 
rents, the surfaces of which the sun’s warmth 
liquefied, making them smoother and more glitter- 
ing. But, at the great height at which they stood, 
all this sparkling brilliance calmed itself; a light 

19 


290 Tartarin on the Alps . 

floated, cold, ecliptic, which made Tartarin shudder 
even more than the sense of silence and solitude in 
that white desert with its mysterious recesses. 

A little smoke, with hollow detonations, rose 
from the hotel. They were seen, a cannon was 
fired in their honour, and the thought that they 
were being looked at, that his Alpinists were there, 
and the misses, the illustrious Prunes and Rices, all 
with their opera-glasses levelled up to him, recalled 
Tartarin to a sense of the grandeur of his mission. 
He tore thee, O Tarasconese banner ! from the 
hands of the guide, waved thee twice or thrice, and 
then, plunging the handle of his ice-axe deep into 
the snow, he seated himself upon the iron of the 
pick, banner in hand, superb, facing the public. 
And there — unknown to himself — by one of 
those spectral reflections frequent upon summits, 
taken between the sun and the mists that rose 
behind him, a gigantic Tartarin was outlined on the 
sky, broader, dumpier, his beard bristling beyond 
the muffler, like one of those Scandinavian gods 
enthroned, as the legend has it, among the clouds. 


En Route for Tar as con. 


291 


XI. 

En route for Taras con. The Lake of Geneva. Tartarin 
proposes a visit to the dungeon of Bonnivard. Short dia- 
logue amid the roses. The whole band under lock and key. 
The unfortunate Bonnivard. Where the rope made at 
Avignon was fou?id. 

As a result of the ascension, Tartarin’s nose 
peeled, pimpled, and his cheeks cracked. He kept 
to his room in the Hotel Bellevue for five days — 
five days of salves and compresses, the sticky unsa- 
vouriness and ennui of which he endeavoured to 
elude by playing cards with the delegates or dictat- 
ing to them a long, circumstantial account of his 
expedition, to be read in session, before the Club 
of the Alpines and published in the Forum. 
Then, as the general lumbago had disappeared 
and nothing remained upon the noble countenance 
of the P. C. A. but a few blisters, sloughs and chil- 
blains on a fine complexion of Etruscan pottery, 
the delegation and its president set out for Taras- 
con, via Geneva. 

Let me omit the episodes of that journey, the 
alarm cast by the Southern band into narrow rail- 
way carriages, steamers, tables d'hote , by its songs, 
its shouts, its overflowing hilarity, its banner, and 
its alpenstocks; for since the ascension of the 


292 Tartarin on the Alps . 

P. C. A. they had all supplied themselves with 
those mountain sticks, on which the names of cele- 
brated climbs were inscribed, burnt in, together 
with popular verses. 

Montreux ! 

Here the delegates, at the suggestion of their 
master, decided to halt for two or three days in 
order to visit the famous shores of Lake Leman, 
Chillon especially, and its legendary dungeon, 
where the great patriot Bonnivard languished, and 
which Byron and Delacroix have immortalized. 

At heart, Tartarin cared little for Bonnivard, his 
adventure with William Tell having enlightened him 
about Swiss legends ; but in passing through Inter- 
laken he had heard that Sonia had gone to 
Montreux with her brother, whose health was 
much worse, and this invention of an historical 
pilgrimage was only a pretext to meet the young 
girl again, and, who knows? persuade her perhaps 
to follow him to Tarascon. 

Let it be fully understood, however, that his 
companions believed, with the best faith in the 
world, that they were on their way to render hom- 
age to a great Genevese citizen whose history the 
P. C. A. had related to them ; in fact, with their 
native taste for theatrical manifestations they were 
desirous, as soon as they landed at Montreux, of 
forming in line, banner displayed and marching at 
once to Chillon with repeated cries of “ Vive Bon- 
nivard ! ” The president was forced to calm them : 
“ Breakfast first,” he said, “ and after that we ’ll see 
about it.” So they filled the omnibus of some 


En Route for Tarascon 293 

Pension Muller or other, situated, with many of its 
kind, close to the landing. 

“ Vi ! that gendarme, how he looks at us,” said 
Pascalon, the last to get in, with the banner, always 
very troublesome to install. “ True,” said Bravida, 
uneasily ; “ what does he want of us, that gendarme ? 
Why does he examine us like that? ” 

“ He recognizes me, pardi ! ” said the worthy 
Tartarin modestly; and he smiled upon the soldier 
of the Vaudois police, whose long blue hooded 
coat followed perseveringly behind the omnibus as 
it threaded its way among the poplars on the 
shore. 

It was market-day at Montreux. Rows of little 
booths were open to the winds of the lake, display- 
ing fruit, vegetables, laces very cheap, and that 
white jewellery, looking like manufactured snow or 
pearls of ice, with which the Swiss women orna- 
ment their costumes. With all this were mingled 
the bustle of the little port, the jostling of a whole 
flotilla of gayly painted pleasure-boats, the trans- 
shipment of casks and sacks from large brigantines 
with lateen sails, the hoarse cries, the bells of the 
steamers, the stir among the cafes, the breweries, 
the traffic of the florists and the second-hand 
dealers who lined the quay. If a ray of sun had 
fallen upon the scene, one might have thought 
one’s self on the marina of a Mediterranean resort 
between Mentone and Bordighera. But sun was 
lacking, and the Tarasconese gazed at the pretty 
landscape through a watery vapour that rose from 
the azure lake, climbed the steep path and the 


294 Tartarin on the Alps . 

pebbly little streets, and joined, above the houses, 
other clouds, black and gray that were clinging 
about the sombre verdure of the mountain, big 
with rain. 

“ Coquin de sort! I ’m not a lacustrian,” said 
Spiridion Excourbanies, wiping the glass of the 
window to look at the perspective of glaciers and 
white vapours that closed the horizon in front of 
him. . . 

“ Nor I, either,” sighed Pascalon, “ this fog, this 
stagnant water . . . makes me want to cry.” 

Bravida complained also, in dread of his sciatic 
gout. 

Tartarin reproved them sternly. Was it nothing 
to be able to relate, on their return, that they had 
seen the dungeon of Bonnivard, inscribed their 
names on its historic walls beside the signatures of 
Rousseau, Byron, Victor Hugo, George Sand, 
Eugene Sue? Suddenly, in the middle of his 
tirade, the president interrupted himself and 
changed colour. . . He had just caught sight of a 
little round hat on a coil of blond hair. Without 
stopping the omnibus, the pace of which had 
slackened in going up hill, he sprang out, calling 
back to the stupefied Alpinists : “ Go on to the 
hotel. . .” 

“ Sonia ! . . Sonia ! . 

He feared that he might not be able to catch 
her, she walked so rapidly, the delicate silhouette 
of her shadow falling on the macadam of the road. 
She turned at his call and waited for him. “ Ah ! 
is it you?” she said; and as soon as they had 


295 


En Route for Tarascon. 

shaken hands she walked on. He fell into step 
beside her, much out of breath, and began to 
excuse himself for having left her so abruptly . . . 
arrival of friends . . . necessity of making the ascen- 
sion (of which his face was still bearing traces) . . . 
She listened without a word, hastening her pace, 
her eyes strained and fixed. Looking at her pro- 
file, she seemed to him paler, her features no longer 
soft with childlike innocence, but hard, a some- 
thing resolute on them which till now had existed 
only in her voice and her imperious will ; and yet 
her youthful grace was there, and the gold of her 
waving hair. 

“ And Boris, how is he?” asked Tartarin, rather 
discomfited by her silence and coldness, which 
began to affect him. 

“Boris? . she quivered: “ Ah! true, you do 
not know. . . Well then ! come, come. . 

They followed a country lane leading past vine- 
yards sloping to the lake, and villas with gardens, 
and elegant terraces laden with clematis, blooming 
with roses, petunias, and myrtles in pots. Now 
and then they met some foreigner with haggard 
cheeks and melancholy glance, walking slowly and 
feebly, like the many whom one meets at Mentone 
and Monaco; only, away down yonder the sun- 
shine laps round all, absorbs all, while beneath this 
lowering cloudy sky suffering is more apparent, 
though the flowers seem fresher. 

“ Enter,” said Sonia, pushing open the railed 
iron door of a white marble fa$ade on which were 
Russian words in gilded letters. 


296 Tartarin on the Alps . 

At first Tartarin did not understand where he 
was. A little garden was before him with gravelled 
paths very carefully kept, and quantities of climb- 
ing roses hanging among the green of the trees, 
and bearing great clusters of white and yellow 
blooms, which filled the narrow space with their 
fragrance and glow. Among these garlands, this 
lovely efflorescence, a few stones were standing or 
lying with dates and names ; the newest of which 
bore the words, carved on its surface : 

“ Boris Wassilief. 22 years.” 

He had been there a few days, dying almost 
as soon as they arrived at Montreux; and in this 
cemetery of foreigners the exile had found a sort 
of country among other Russians and Poles and 
Swedes, buried beneath the roses, consumptives 
of cold climates sent to this Northern Nice, be- 
cause the Southern sun would be for them too 
violent, the transition too abrupt. 

They stood for a moment motionless and mute 
before the whiteness of that new stone lying on the 
blackness of the fresh-turned earth ; the young 
girl, with her head bent down, inhaling the breath 
of the roses, and calming, as she stood, her red- 
dened eyes. 

“ Poor little girl ! ” said Tartarin with emotion, 
taking in his strong rough hands the tips of Sonia’s 
fingers. “ And you? what will you do now? ” 

She looked him full in the face with dry and 
shining eyes in which the tears no longer trembled. 

“ I ? I leave within an hour.” 


En Route for Tarascon. 297 

“You are going? . .” 

“ Bolibine is already in St. Petersburg. . . Mani- 
lof is waiting for me to cross the frontier. . . I 
return to the work. We shall be heard from.” 
Then, in a low voice, she added with a half-smile, 
planting her blue glance full into that of Tartarin, 
which avoided it: “ He who loves me follows me.” 

Ah ! vat, follow her ! The little fanatic fright- 
ened him. Besides, this funereal scene had cooled 
his love. Still, he ought not to appear to back 
down like a scoundrel. So, with his hand on his 
heart and the gesture of an Abencerrage, the hero 
began: “You know me, Sonia. . .” 

She did not need to hear more. 

“ Gabbler ! ” she said, shrugging her shoulders. 
And she walked away, erect and proud, beneath 
the roses, without once turning round. . . Gab- 
bler ! . . not one word more, but the intonation 
was so contemptuous that the worthy Tartarin 
blushed beneath his beard, and looked about to 
see if they had been quite alone in the garden so 
that no one had overheard her. 

Among our Tarasconese, fortunately, impres- 
sions do not last long. Five minutes later Tartarin 
was going up the terraces of Montreux with a lively 
step in quest of the Pension Muller and his Alpin- 
ists, who must certainly be waiting breakfast for 
him; and his whole person breathed a relief, a joy 
at getting rid finally of that dangerous acquaint- 
ance. As he walked along he emphasized with 
many energetic nods the eloquent explanations 


298 Tartarin on the Alps : 

which Sonia would not wait to hear, but which he 
gave to himself mentally : Be! . . yes, despotism 
certainly. . . He did n’t deny that . . . but from 
that to action, boufre ! . . And then, to make it 
his profession to shoot despots ! . . Why, if all 
oppressed peoples applied to him — just as the 
Arabs did to Bombonnel whenever a panther 
roamed round their village — he couldn’t suffice 
for them all, never ! 

At this moment a hired carriage coming down 
the hill at full speed cut short his monologue. He 
had scarcely time to jump upon the sidewalk with 
a “Take care, you brute ! ” when his cry of anger 
was changed to one of stupefaction : “ Ques aco! . . 
Bondiou ! . . Not possible ! . .” 

I give you a thousand guesses to say what he 
saw in that old landau. . . 

The delegation ! the full delegation, Bravida, 
Pascalon, Excourbanies, piled upon the back seat, 
pale, horror-stricken, ghastly, and two gendarmes 
in front of them, muskets in hand ! The sight of all 
those profiles, motionless and mute, visible through 
the narrow frame of the carriage window, was like 
a nightmare. Nailed to the ground, as formerly 
on the ice by his Kennedy crampons, Tartarin was 
gazing at that fantastic vehicle flying along at a 
gallop, followed at full speed by a flock of school- 
boys, their atlases swinging on their backs, when 
a voice shouted in his ears : “ And here ’s the 

fourth ! . .” At the same time clutched, garotted, 
bound, he, too, was hoisted into a locati with gen- 
darmes, among them an officer armed with a gi- 


En Route for Tar as con. 299 

gantic cavalry sabre, which he held straight up 
from between his knees, the point of it touching 
the roof of the vehicle. 

Tartarin wanted to speak, to explain. Evidently 
there must be some mistake. . . He told his name, 
his nation, demanded his consul, and named a seller 
of Swiss honey, Ichener, whom he had met at 
the fair at Beaucaire. Then, on the persistent 
silence of his captors, he bethought him that this 
might be another bit of machinery in Bompard’s 
fairyland ; so, addressing the officer, he said with 
sly air: “ For fun, quR. . . ha ! vat, you rogue, I 
know very well it is all a joke.” 

“Not another word, or I ’ll gag you,” said the 
officer, rolling terrible eyes as if he meant to spit 
him on his sabre. 

The other kept quiet, and stirred no more, but 
gazed through the door at the lake, the tall moun- 
tains of a humid green, the hotels and pensions 
with variegated roofs and gilded signs visible for 
miles, and on the slopes, as at the Rigi, a coming 
and going of market and provision baskets, and 
(like the Rigi again) a comical little railway, a 
dangerous mechanical plaything crawling up the 
height to Glion, and — to complete the resemblance 
to Regina Montium — a pouring, beating rain, an 
exchange of water and mist from the sky to Leman 
and Leman to the sky, the clouds descending till 
they touched the waves. 

The vehicle crossed a drawbridge between a 
cluster of little shops of “ chamoiseries,” pen- 
knives, corkscrews, pocket-combs, etc., and stopped 


300 Tar tar in on the Alps . 

in the courtyard of an old castle overgrown with 
weeds, flanked by two round pepper-pot towers 
with black balconies guarded by parapets and sup- 
ported by beams. Where was he? Tartarin learned 
where when he heard the officer of gendarmerie 
discussing the matter with the concierge of the 
castle, a fat man in a Greek cap who was jangling 
a bunch of rusty keys. 

“ Solitary confinement . . . but I have n’t a place 
for him. The others have taken all . . . unless we 
put him in Bonnivard’s dungeon.” 

“ Yes, put him in Bonnivard’s dungeon ; that ’s 
good enough for him,” ordered the captain; and 
it was done as he said. 

This Castle of Chillon, about which the P. C. A. 
had never for two days ceased to discourse to his 
dear Alpinists, and in which, by the irony of fate, he 
found himself suddenly incarcerated without know- 
ing why, is one of the most frequented historical 
monuments in Switzerland. After having served 
as a summer residence to the Dukes of Savoie, 
then as a state-prison, afterwards as an arsenal for 
arms and munitions, it is to-day the mere pretext 
for an excursion, like the Rigi and the Tellsplatte. 
It still contains, however, a post of gendarmerie and 
a “ violon,” that is, a cell for drunkards and the 
naughty boys of the neighbourhood ; but they are 
so rare in the peaceable Canton of Vaud that the 
“ violon ” is always empty and the concierge uses 
it as a receptacle to store his wood for winter. 
Therefore the arrival of all these prisoners had put 
him out of temper, especially at the thought that 


3 ox 


En Route for Tarascon . 

he could no longer take visitors to see the famous 
dungeon, which at this season of the year is the 
chief profit of the place. 

Furious, he showed the way to Tartarin, who 
followed him without the courage to make the 
slightest resistance. A few crumbling steps, a 
damp corridor smelling like a cellar, a door thick 
as a wall with enormous hinges, and there they 
were, in a vast subterranean vault, with earthen 
floor and heavy Roman pillars in which were still 
the iron rings to which prisoners of state had 
been chained. A dim light fell, tremulous with 
the shimmer of the lake, through narrow slits in 
the wall, which scarcely showed more than a scrap 
of the sky. 

“ Here you are at home,” said the jailer. “ Be 
careful you don’t go to the farther end: the pit 
is there. . .” 

Tartarin recoiled, horrified: — 

“ The pit ! Boudiou ! ” 

“What do you expect, my lad? I am ordered 
to put you in Bonnivard’s dungeon. . . I have 
put you in Bonnivard’s dungeon. . . Now, if you 
have the means, you can be furnished with certain 
comforts, for instance, a mattress and coverlet for 
the night.” 

“ Something to eat, in the first place,” said 
Tartarin, from whom, very luckily, they had not 
taken his purse. 

The concierge returned with a fresh roll, beer, 
and a sausage, greedily devoured by the new 
prisoner of Chillon, fasting since the night before 


302 Tar tar in on the Alps . 

and hollow with fatigue and emotion. While he 
ate on his stone bench in the gleam of his vent- 
hole window, the jailer examined him with a good- 
natured eye. 

“ Faith,” said he, “ I don’t know what you 
have done, nor why they should treat you so 
severely. . 

“ Nor I either, coquin de sort ! I know nothing 
about it,” said Tartarin, with his mouth full. 

“ Well, it is very certain that you don’t look 
like a bad man, and, surely, you would n’t hinder 
a poor father of a family from earning his living, 
would you? . . Now, see here! . . I have got, 
up above there, a whole party of people who have 
come to see Bonnivard’s dungeon. . . If you would 
promise me to keep quiet, and not try to run 
away ...” 

The worthy Tartarin bound himself by an oath ; 
and five minutes later he beheld his dungeon 
invaded by his old acquaintances on the Rigi- 
Kulm and the Tellsplatte, that jackass Schwan- 
thaler, the ineptissimus Astier-Rehu, the member 
of the Jockey-Club with his niece (h’m ! h’m ! . .) 
and all the travellers on Cook’s Circular. Ashamed, 
dreading to be recognized, the unfortunate man 
concealed himself behind pillars, getting farther 
and farther away as the troop of tourists advanced, 
preceded by the concierge and his homily, delivered 
in a doleful voice : “ Here is where the unfortunate 
Bonnivard, etc. . .” 

They advanced slowly, retarded by discussions 
between the two savants , quarrelling as usual and 


En Route for Tarascon . 303 

ready to jump at each other’s throats; the one 
waving his campstool, the other his travelling-bag 
in fantastic attitudes, which the twilight from the 
window-slits lengthened upon the vaulted roof. 

By dint of retreating, Tartarin presently found 
himself close to the hole of the pit, a black pit 
open to the level of the soil, emitting the breath 
of ages, malarious and glacial. Frightened, he 
stopped short, and curled himself into a corner, 
his cap over his eyes. But the damp saltpetre 
of the walls affected him, and suddenly a stento- 
rian sneeze, which made the tourists recoil, gave 
notice of his presence. 

“ Tien s, there ’s Bonnivard ! . cried the bold 
little Parisian woman in a Directory hat whom the 
gentleman from the Jockey-Club called his niece. 

The Tarasconese hero did not allow himself to 
be disconcerted. 

“ They are really very curious, these pits,” he 
said, in the most natural tone in the world, as if he 
was visiting the dungeon, like them, for pleasure; 
and so saying, he mingled with the other travellers, 
who smiled at recognizing the Alpinist of the Rigi- 
Kulm, the merry instigator of the famous ball. 

“ H£ ! mossie . . . ballir . . . dantsir ! . .” 

The comical silhouette of the little fairy Schwan- 
thaler rose up before him ready to seize him for 
a country dance. A fine mood he was in now for 
dancing ! But not knowing how to rid himself of 
that determined little scrap of a woman, he offered 
his arm and gallantly showed her his dungeon, 
the ring to which the captive was chained, the 


304 Tartarin on the Alps . 

trace of his steps on the stone round that pillar ; 
and never, hearing him converse with such ease, 
did the good lady even dream that he too was a 
prisoner of state, a victim of the injustice and the 
wickedness of men. Terrible, however, was the 
departure, when the unfortunate Bonnivard, having 
conducted his partner to the door, took leave of 
her with the smile of a man of the world : “ No, 
thank you, v/ ! . . I stay a few moments longer.” 
Thereupon he bowed, and the jailer, who had his 
eye upon him, locked and bolted the door, to the 
stupefaction of everybody. 

What a degradation ! He perspired with anguish, 
unhappy man, while listening to the exclamations 
of the tourists as they walked away. Fortunately, 
the anguish was not renewed. No more tourists 
arrived that day on account of the bad weather. 
A terrible wind blew through the rotten boards, 
moans came up from the pit as from victims ill- 
buried, and the wash of the lake, swollen with rain, 
beat against the walls to the level of the window- 
slits and spattered its water upon the captive. At 
intervals the bell of a passing steamer, the clack 
of its paddle-wheels cut short the reflections of 
poor Tartarin, as evening, gray and gloomy, fell 
into the dungeon and seemed to enlarge it. 

How explain this arrest, this imprisonment in 
the ill-omened place? Costecalde, perhaps . . . 
electioneering manoeuvre at the last hour? . . Or, 
could it be that the Russian police, warned of his 
very imprudent language, his liaison with Sonia, 
had asked for his extradition? But if so, why 


En Route for Tarascon . 305 

arrest the delegates? . . What blame could attach 
to those poor unfortunates, whose terror and despair 
he imagined, although they were not, like him, in 
Bonnivard’s dungeon, beneath those granite arches, 
where, since night had fallen, roamed monstrous 
rats, cockroaches, silent spiders with hairy, crooked 
legs. 

But see what it is to possess a good conscience ! 
In spite of rats, cold, spiders, and beetles, the great 
Tartarin found in the horror of that state-prison, 
haunted by the shades of martyrs, the same solid 
and sonorous sleep, mouth open, fists closed, 
which came to him, between the abysses and 
heaven, in the hut of the Alpine Club. He fan- 
cied he was dreaming when he heard his jailer 
say in the morning: — 

“ Get up ; the prefect of the district is here, . . 
He has come to examine you. . .” Adding, with 
a certain respect, “To bring the prefect out in this 
way . . . why, you must be a famous scoundrel.” 

Scoundrel! no — but you may look like one, 
after spending the night in a damp and dusty 
dungeon without having a chance to make a 
toilet, however limited. And when, in the former 
stable of the castle transformed into a guardroom 
with muskets in racks along the walls, — when, I say, 
Tartarin, after a reassuring glance at his Alpinists 
seated between two gendarmes, appeared before 
the prefect of the district, he felt his disreputable 
appearance in presence of that correct and solemn 
magistrate with the carefully trimmed beard, who 
said to him sternly : — 


20 


306 Tar tar in on the Alps . 

“You call yourself Manilof, do you not? . . 
Russian subject . . . incendiary at St. Petersburg, 
refugee and murderer in Switzerland.” 

“ Never in my life. . . It is all a mistake, an 
error. . 

“ Silence, or I ’ll gag you . . interrupted the 
captain. 

The immaculate prefect continued : “ To put an 
end to your denials. . . Do you know this rope? ” 

His rope ! coquin de sort ! His rope, woven with 
iron, made at Avignon. He lowered his head, to 
the stupefaction of the delegates, and said : “ I 
know it.” 

“ With this rope a man has been hung in the 
Canton of Unterwald. . 

Tartarin, with a shudder, swore that he had 
nothing to do with it. 

“ We shall see ! ” 

The Italian tenor was now introduced, — in other 
words, the police spy whom the Nihilists had hung 
to the branch of an oak-tree on the Briinig, but 
whose life was miraculously saved by wood- 
choppers. 

The spy looked at Tartarin. “That is not the 
man,” he said; then at the delegates, “ Nor they, 
either. . . A mistake has been made.” 

The prefect, furious, turned to Tartarin. “Then, 
what are you doing here?” he asked. 

“ That is what I ask myself, ve ! . .” replied the 
president, with the aplomb of innocence. 

After a short explanation the Alpinists of Taras- 
con, restored to liberty, departed from the Castle of 


En Route for Tar as con. 307 

Chillon, where none have ever felt its oppressive 
and romantic melancholy more than they. They 
stopped at the Pension Muller to get their luggage 
and banner, and to pay for the breakfast of the 
day before which they had not had time to eat; 
then they started for Geneva by the train. It 
rained. Through the streaming windows they read 
the names of stations of aristocratic villeggiatura : 
Clarens, Vevey, Lausanne ; red chalets, little gar- 
dens of rare shrubs passed them under a misty 
veil, the branches of the trees, the turrets on the 
roofs, the galleries of the hotels all dripping. 

Installed in one corner of a long railway carriage, 
on two seats facing each other, the Alpinists had a 
downcast and discomfited appearance. Bravida, 
very sour, complained of aches, and repeatedly 
asked Tartarin with savage irony : “ Eh be ! you ’ve 
seen it now, that dungeon of Bonnivard’s that you 
were so set on seeing ... I think you have seen 
it, qu£f ” Excourbanies, voiceless for the first 
time in his life, gazed piteously at the lake which 
escorted them the whole way : “ Water ! more 
water, Boudiou ! . . after this, I ’ll never in my life 
take another bath.” 

Stupefied by a terror which still lasts, Pascalon, 
the banner between his legs, sat back in his seat, 
looking to right and left like a hare fearful of being 
caught again. . . And Tartarin? . . Oh ! he, ever 
dignified and calm, he was diverting himself by 
reading the Southern newspapers, a package of 
which had been sent to the Pension Muller, all 
of them having reproduced from the Forum the 


308 Tartarin on the Alps . 

account of his ascension, the same he had himself 
dictated, but enlarged, magnified, and embellished 
with ineffable laudations. Suddenly the hero gave 
a cry, a formidable cry, which resounded to the end 
of the carriage. All the travellers sat up excitedly, 
expecting an accident. It was simply an item 
in the Forum , which Tartarin now read to his 
Alpinists : — 

“ Listen to this : i Rumour has it that V. P. C. A. 
Costecalde, though scarcely recovered from the 
jaundice which kept him in bed for some days, 
is about to start for the ascension of Mont Blanc ; 
to climb higher than Tartarin ! . Oh ! the vil- 
lain. . . He wants to ruin the effect of my Jung- 
frau. . . Well, well ! wait a bit; I ’ll blow you out 
of water, you and your mountain. . . Chamounix 
is only a few hours from Geneva; I’ll do Mont 
Blanc before him ! Will you come, my children? ” 

Bravida protested. Outre ! he had had enough 
of adventures. 

“ Enough and more than enough . . howled 
Excourbanies, in his almost extinct voice. 

“And you, Pascalon?” asked Tartarin, gently. 

The pupil dared not raise his eyes : — 

“ Ma-a-aster. . .” He, too, abandoned him ! 

“ Very good,” said the hero, solemnly and angrily, 
“ I will go alone ; all the honour will be mine. . , 
Zou! give me back the banner. . 


Hotel Baltet at Chamonix . 


309 


XII. 

H 6 tel Baltet at Chamonix . “ I smell garlic / ” The use 
of rope in Alpme climbing. “ Shake hands.” A pupil of 
Schopenhauer. At the hut on the Grands-Mulets. “ Tar- 
larin, / must speak to you.” 

Nine o’clock was ringing from the belfry at 
Chamonix of a cold night shivering with the 
north wind and rain ; the black streets, the dark* 
ened houses (except, here and there, the facades 
and courtyards of hotels where the gas was still 
burning) made the surroundings still more gloomy 
under the vague reflection of the snow of the 
mountains, white as a planet on the night of the 
sky. 

At the Hotel Baltet, one of the best and most 
frequented inns of this Alpine village, the numerous 
travellers and boarders had disappeared one by 
one, weary with the excursions of the day, until no 
one was left in the grand salon but one English 
traveller playing silently at backgammon with his 
wife, his innumerable daughters, in brown-holland 
aprons with bibs, engaged in copying notices of an 
approaching evangelical service, and a young 
Swede sitting before the fireplace, in which was a 
good fire of blazing logs. The latter was pale, hol- 
low-cheeked, and gazed at the flame with a gloomy 


310 Tar tar in on the Alfis. 

air as he drank his grog of kirsch and seltzer 
From time to time some belated traveller crossed 
the salon, with soaked gaiters and streaming mack- 
intosh, looked at the great barometer hanging to 
the wall, tapped it, consulted the mercury as to the 
weather of the following day, and went off to bed in 
consternation. Not a word; no other manifesta- 
tions of life than the crackling of the fire, the pat- 
tering on the panes, and the angry roll of the Arve 
under the arches of its wooden bridge, a few yards 
distant from the hotel. 

Suddenly the door of the salon opened, a porter 
in a silver-laced coat came in, carrying valises and 
rugs, with four shivering Alpinists behind him, daz- 
zled by the sudden change from icy darkness into 
warmth and light. 

“ Boudiou ! what weather ! . . ” 

“ Something to eat, zou ! ” 

“ Warm the beds, qu/f ” 

They all talked at once from the depths of their 
mufflers and ear-pads, and it was hard to know 
which to obey, when a short stout man, whom the 
others called “ prfcidain” enforced silence by 
shouting more loudly than they. 

“ In the first place, give me the visitors’ book,” 
he ordered. Turning it over with a numbed hand, 
he read aloud the names of all who had been at the 
hotel for the last week : “ ‘ Doctor Schwanthaler and 
madame. ’ Again ! . . ‘ Astier-Rehu of the French 
Academy. . . ’ ” He deciphered thus two or three 
pages, turning pale when he thought he saw the 
name he was in search of. Then, at the end, fling- 


Hotel Baltet at Chamonix . 3 1 1 

ing the book on the table with a laugh of triumph, 
the squat man made a boyish gambol quite ex- 
traordinary in one of his bulky shape : “ He is not 
here, ! he has n’t come. . . And yet he must 
have stopped here if he had. . . Done for ! Coste- 
calde. . . lagadigadeou ! . . quick ! to our suppers, 
children ! . . ” And the worthy Tartarin, having 
bowed to the ladies, marched to the dining-room, 
followed by the famished and tumultuous dele- 
gation. 

Ah, yes ! the delegation, all of them, even Bravida 
himself. . . Is it possible? come now! . . But — 
just think what would be said of them down there 
in Tarascon, if they returned without Tartarin? 
They each felt this. And, at the moment of sep- 
aration in the station at Geneva, the buffet 
witnessed a pathetic scene of tears, embraces, heart- 
rending adieus to the banner; as the result of 
which adieus the whole company piled itself into 
the landau which Tartarin had chartered to take 
him to Chamonix. A glorious route, which they 
did with their eyes shut, wrapped in their rugs 
and filling the carriage with sonorous snores, un- 
mindful of the wonderful landscape, which, from 
Sallanches, was unrolling before them in a mist of 
blue rain : ravines, forests, foaming waterfalls, with 
the crest of Mont Blanc above the clouds, visible 
or vanishing, according to the lay of the land in the 
valley they were crossing. Tired of that sort of 
natural beauty, our Tarasconese friends thought 
only of making up for the wretched night they had 
spent behind the bolts of Chillon. And even now, 


312 Tartarin on the Alps . 

at the farther end of the long, deserted dining-room 
of the Hotel Baltet, when served with the warmed- 
over soup and entrees of the table d'hote , they ate 
voraciously, without saying a word, eager only to 
get to bed. All of a sudden, Excourbanies, who 
was swallowing his food like a somnambulist, came 
out of his plate, and sniffing the air about him, re- 
marked : “ I smell garlic ! . . ” 

“ True, I smell it,” said Bravida. And the whole 
party, revived by this reminder of home, these 
fumes of the national dishes, which Tartarin, at 
least, had not inhaled for so long, turned round in 
their chairs with gluttonous anxiety. The odour 
came from the other end of the dining-room, from 
a little room where some one was supping apart, a 
personage of importance, no doubt, for the white 
cap of the head cook was constantly appearing at 
the wicket that opened into the kitchen as he 
passed to the girl in waiting certain little covered 
dishes which she conveyed to the inner apartment. 

“ Some one from the South, that’s certain,” mur- 
mured the gentle Pascalon ; and the president, 
becoming ghastly at the idea of Costecalde, said 
commandingly : — 

“ Go and see, Spiridion . . . and bring us word 
who it is. . . ” 

A loud roar of laughter came from that little 
apartment as soon as the brave “ gong ” entered 
it, at the order of his chief; and he presently re- 
turned, leading by the hand a tall devil with a big 
nose, a mischievous eye, and a napkin under his 
chin, like the gastronomic horse. 


Hotel Ballet at Chamonix \ 313 

“ Vi! Bompard. . . ” 

“ Tel the Impostor. . . ” 

“ He ! Gonzague. . . How are you ? ” 

“ Dijferemmenty messieurs: your most obedi- 
ent ...” said the courier, shaking hands with all, and 
sitting down at the table of the Tarasconese to share 
with them a dish of mushrooms with garlic prepared 
by mhe Baltet, who, together with her husband had 
a horror of the cooking for the table d'hdte. 

Was it the national concoction, or the joy of 
meeting a compatriot, that delightful Bompard 
with his inexhaustible imagination? Certain it is 
that weariness and the desire to sleep took wings, 
champagne was uncorked, and, with moustachios 
all messy with froth, they laughed and shouted 
and gesticulated, clasping one another round the 
body effusively happy. 

“I’ll not leave you now, ve'l” said Bompard. 
“ My Peruvians have gone. . . I am free. . 

“Free! .. Then to-morrow you and I will 
ascend Mont Blanc.” 

“Ah! you do Mont Blanc to-morrow?” said 
Bompard, without enthusiasm. 

“ Yes, I knock out Costecalde. . . When he gets 
here, nit! . . No Mont Blanc for him. . . You’ll 
go, qul, Gonzague ? ” 

“ I ’ll go ... I ’ll go . . . that is, if the weather 
permits. . . The fact is, that the mountain is not 
always suitable at this season.” 

“Ah! vat! not suitable indeed! . .” exclaimed 
Tartarin, crinkling up his eyes by a meaning laugh 
which Bompard seemed not to understand. 


314 Tartarin on the Alps . 

“ Let us go into the salon for our coffee. . . 
We ’ll consult pfoe Baltet. He knows all about it, 
he ’s an old guide who has made the ascension 
twenty-seven times.” 

All the delegates cried out : “ Twenty-seven 
times ! Boufre ! ” 

“ Bompard always exaggerates,” said the P. C. A. 
severely, but not without a touch of envy. 

In the salon they found the daughters of the 
minister still bending over their notices, while the 
father and mother were asleep at their backgam- 
mon, and the tall Swede was stirring his seltzer 
grog with the same disheartened gesture. But the 
invasion of the Tarasconese Alpinists, warmed by 
champagne, caused, as may well be supposed, some 
distraction of mind to the young conventiclers. 
Never had those charming young persons seen 
coffee taken with such rollings of the eyes and pan- 
tomimic action. 

“ Sugar, Tartarin? ” 

“ Of course not, commander. . . You know very 
well. . . Since Africa ! . .” 

“True; excuse me. . . 7 V 7 here comes M. 

Baltet.” 

“ Sit down there, qu /, Monsieur Baltet.” 

“ Vive Monsieur Baltet ! . . Ha ! ha ! fen dl 
brut!' 

Surrounded, captured by all these men whom he 
had never seen before in his life, pere Baltet smiled 
with a tranquil air. A robust Savoyard, tall and 
broad, with a round back and slow walk, a heavy 
face, close-shaven, enlivened by two shrewd eyes, 


Hotel Baltet at Chamonix. 315 

that were still young, contrasting oddly with his 
baldness, caused by chills at dawn upon the moun- 
tain. 

“These gentlemen wish to ascend Mont Blanc?” 
he said, gauging the Tarasconese Alpinists with a 
glance both humble and sarcastic. Tartarin was 
about to reply, but Bompard forestalled him : — 

“ Is n’t the season too far advanced?” 

“ Why, no,” replied the former guide. “ Here ’s 
a Swedish gentleman who goes up to-morrow, and 
I am expecting at the end of this week two Ameri- 
can gentlemen to make the ascent; and one of 
them is blind.” 

“ I know. I met them on the Guggi.” 

“ Ah ! monsieur has been upon the Guggi ? ” 

“Yes, a week ago, in doing the Jungfrau.” 

Here a quiver among the evangelical conventi- 
clers ; all pens stopped, and heads were raised in 
the direction of Tartarin, who, to the eyes of these 
English maidens, resolute climbers, expert in all 
sports, acquired considerable authority. He had 
gone up the Jungfrau ! 

“ A fine thing ! ” said plre Baltet, considering the 
P. C. A. with some astonishment ; while Pascalon, 
intimidated by the ladies and blushing and stutter- 
ing, murmured softly: — 

“ Ma-a-aster, tell them the . . . the . . . thing . . . 
crevasse.” 

The president smiled. “Child! . .” he said: 
but, all the same, he began the tale of his fall ; first 
with a careless, indifferent air, and then with 
startled motions, jigglings at the end of the rope 


3 1 6 Tar tar in on the Alps . 

over the abyss, hands outstretched and appealing. 
The young ladies quivered, and devoured him with 
those cold English eyes, those eyes that open 
round. 

In the silence that followed, rose the voice of 
Bompard : — 

“ On Chimborazo we never roped one another to 
cross crevasses.” 

The delegates looked at one another. As a 
tarasconade that remark surpassed them all. 

“ Oh, that Bompard, pas mouain . . .” murmured 
Pascalon, with ingenuous admiration. 

But pere Baltet, taking Chimborazo seriously, 
protested against the practice of not roping. Ac- 
cording to him, no ascension over ice was possible 
without a rope, a good rope of Manila hemp ; then, 
if one slipped, the others could hold him. 

“ Unless the rope breaks, Monsieur Baltet,” 
said Tartarin, remembering the catastrophe on the 
Matterhorn. 

But the landlord, weighing his words, replied : 

“The rope did not break on the Matterhorn . . . 
the rear guide cut it with a blow of his axe. . 

As Tartarin expressed indignation, — 

“ Beg pardon, monsieur, but the guide had a 
right to do it. . . He saw the impossibility of hold- 
ing back those who had fallen, and he detached 
himself from them to save his life, that of his son, 
and of the traveller they were accompanying. . . 
Without his action seven persons would have lost 
their lives instead of four.” 

Then a discussion began. Tartarin thought that 


Hotel Baltet at Chamonix . 


3 l 7 


in letting yourself be roped in file you were bound 
in honour to live and die together; and growing 
excited, especially in presence of ladies, he backed 
his opinion by facts and by persons present : “ To- 
morrow, te! to-morrow, in roping myself to Bom- 
pard, it is not a simple precaution that I shall take, 
it is an oath before God and man to be one with 
my companion and to die sooner than return with- 
out him, coquin de sort ! ” 

“ I accept the oath for myself, as for you, Tar- 
tarin. . cried Bompard from the other side of 
the round table. 

Exciting moment ! 

The minister, electrified, rose, came to the hero 
and inflicted upon him a pump-handle exercise of 
the hand that was truly English. His wife did like- 
wise, then all the young ladies continued the shake 
hands with enough vigour to have brought water 
to the fifth floor of the house. The delegates, 
I ought to mention, were less enthusiastic. 

“ Eh, he! as for me,” said Bravida, “ I am of M. 
Baltet’s opinion. In matters of this kind, each man 
should look to his own skin, pardi ! and / under- 
stand that cut of the axe perfectly.” 

“ You amaze me, Placide,” said Tartarin, se- 
verely ; adding in a low voice : “ Behave your- 
self! England is watching us.” 

The old captain, who certainly had kept a root 
of bitterness in his heart ever since the excursion 
to Chillon, made a gesture that signified : “ I don’t 
care that for England. . .” and might perhaps have 
drawn upon himself a sharp rebuke from the presi- 


3 1 8 Tartarin on the Alps . 

dent, irritated at so much cynicism, but at this 
moment the young man with the heart-broken 
look, filled to the full with grog and melancholy, 
brought his extremely bad French into the con- 
versation. He thought, he said, that the guide 
was right to cut the rope : to deliver from exist- 
ence those four unfortunate men, still young, con- 
demned to live for many years longer; to send 
them, by a mere gesture, to peace, to nothingness, 
— what a noble and generous action ! 

Tartarin exclaimed against it: — 

“ Pooh ! young man, at your age, to talk of life 
with such aversion, such anger. . . What has life 
done to you? ” 

“Nothing; it bores me.” He had studied phi- 
losophy at Christiania, and since then, won to the 
ideas of Schopenhauer and Hartmann, he had 
found existence dreary, inept, chaotic. On the 
verge of suicide he shut his books, at the entreaty 
of his parents, and started to travel, striking 
everywhere against the same distress, the gloomy 
wretchedness of this life. Tartarin and his friends, 
he said, seemed to him the only beings content to 
live that he had ever met with. 

The worthy P. C. A. began to laugh. “ It is 
all race, young man. Everybody feels like that 
in Tarascon. That ’s the land of the good God. 
From morning till night we laugh and sing, and 
the rest of the time we dance the farandole . . . 
like this ...///” So saying, he cut a double 
shuffle with the grace and lightness of a big cock 
chafer trying its wings. 


Hotel Baltet at Chamonix . 319 

But the delegates had not the steel nerves nor 
the indefatigable spirit of their chief. Excour- 
banies growled out : “ He ’ll keep us here till mid- 
night.” But Bravida jumped up, furious. “ Let 
us go to bed, vi ! I can’t stand my sciatica. . .” 
Tartarin consented, remembering the ascension on 
the morrow; and the Tarasconese, candlesticks in 
hand, went up the broad staircase of granite that 
led to the chambers, while Baltet went to see 
about provisions and hire the mules and guides. 

“ Te ! it is snowing. . .” 

Those were the first words of the worthy Tar- 
tarin when he woke in the morning and saw his 
windows covered with frost and his bedroom 
inundated with white reflections. But when he 
hooked his little mirror as usual to the window- 
fastening, he understood his mistake, and saw that 
Mont Blanc, sparkling before him in the splendid 
sunshine, was the cause of that light. He opened 
his window to the breeze of the glacier, keen and 
refreshing, bringing with it the sound of the cattle- 
bells as the herds followed the long, lowing sound 
of the shepherd’s horn. Something fortifying, 
pastoral, filled the atmosphere such as he had 
never before breathed in Switzerland. 

Below, an assemblage of guides and porters 
awaited him. The Swede was already mounted 
upon his mule, and among the spectators, who 
formed a circle, was the minister’s family, all 
those active young ladies, their hair in early 
morning style, who had come for another “ shake 


320 Tartarin on the Alps . 

hands ” with the hero who had haunted their 
dreams. 

“Splendid weather! make haste! . cried the 
landlord, whose skull was gleaming in the sunshine 
like a pebble. But though Tartarin himself might 
hasten, it was not so easy a matter to rouse from 
sleep his dear Alpinists, who intended to accompany 
him as far as the Pierre-Pointue, where the mule- 
path ends. Neither prayers nor arguments could 
persuade the Commander to get out of bed. With 
his cotton nightcap over his ears and his face to 
the wall, he contented himself with replying to 
Tartarin’s objurgations by a cynical Tarasconese 
proverb : “ Whoso has the credit of getting up 
early may sleep until midday. . .” As for Bom- 
pard, he kept repeating, the whole time, “ Ah, vat, 
Mont Blanc . . . what a humbug. . .” Nor did 
they rise until the P. C. A. had issued a formal 
order. 

At last, however, the caravan started, and 
passed through the little streets in very imposing 
array: Pascalon on the leading mule, banner un- 
furled ; and last in file, grave as a mandarin amid 
the guides and porters on either side his mule, 
came the worthy Tartarin, more stupendously 
Alpinist than ever, wearing a pair of new spec- 
tacles with smoked and convex glasses, and his 
famous rope made at Avignon, recovered — we 
know at what cost. 

Very much looked at, almost as much as the 
banner, he was jubilant under his dignified mask, 
enjoyed the picturesqueness of these Savoyard 


Hotel Baltet at Chamonix . 321 

village streets, so different from the too neat, too 
varnished Swiss village, looking like a new toy; 
he enjoyed the contrast of these hovels scarcely 
rising above the ground, where the stable fills 
the largest space, with the grand and sumptuous 
hotels five storeys high, the glittering signs of 
which were as much out of keeping with the 
hovels as the gold-laced cap of the porter and 
the pumps and black coats of the waiters with 
the Savoyard head-gear, the fustian jackets, the 
felt hats of the charcoal-burners with their broad 
wings. 

On the square were landaus with the horses 
taken out, manure-carts side by side with travel- 
ling-carriages, and a troop of pigs idling in the sun 
before the post-office, from which issued an Eng- 
lishman in a white linen cap, with a package of 
letters and a copy of The Times , which he read 
as he walked along, before he opened his corre- 
spondence. The cavalcade of the Tarasconese 
passed all this, accompanied by the scuffling of 
mules, the war-cry of Excourbanies (to whom the 
sun had restored the use of his gong), the pastoral 
chimes on the neighbouring slopes, and the dash 
of the river, gushing from the glacier in a torrent 
all white and sparkling, as if it bore upon its breast 
both sun and snow. 

On leaving the village Bompard rode his mule 
beside that of the president, and said to the latter, 
rolling his eyes in a most extraordinary manner : 
“Tartarin, I must speak to you. . .” 

“ Presently. . said the P. C. A., then engaged 
21 


322 Tartarin on the Alps . 

in a philosophical discussion with the young Swede, 
whose black pessimism he was endeavouring to 
correct by the marvellous spectacle around them, 
those pastures with great zones of light and shade, 
those forests of sombre green crested with the 
whiteness of the dazzling ntves. 

After two attempts to speak to the president, 
Bompard was forced to give it up. The Arve 
having been crossed by a little bridge, the caravan 
now entered one of those narrow, zigzag roads 
among the firs where the mules, one by one, follow 
with their fantastic sabots all the sinuosities of the 
ravines, and our tourists had their attention fully 
occupied in keeping their equilibrium by the help 
of many an “ Outre ! . . Boufre ! . . gently, gen- 
tly ! . with which they guided their beasts. 

At the chalet of the Pierre-Pointue, where Pas- 
calon and Excourbanies were to wait the return 
of the excursionists, Tartarin, much occupied in 
ordering breakfast and in looking after porters and 
guides, still paid no attention to Bompard’s whis- 
perings. But — singular fact, which was not re- 
marked until later — in spite of the fine weather, 
the good wine, and that purified atmosphere of ten 
thousand feet above sea-level, the breakfast v/as 
melancholy. While they heard the guides laugh- 
ing and making merry apart, the table of the Taras- 
conese was silent except for the rattle of glasses 
and the clatter of the heavy plates and covers on 
the white wood. Was it the presence of that 
morose Swede, or the visible uneasiness of Bom- 
pard, or some presentiment? At any rate, the 


Hotel Baltet at Chamonix . 323 

party set forth, sad as a battalion without its band, 
towards the glacier of the Bossons, where the true 
ascent begins. 

On setting foot upon the ice, Tartarin could not 
help smiling at the recollection of the Guggi and 
his perfected crampons. What a difference between 
the neophyte he then was and the first-class Alpin- 
ist he felt he had become ! Steady on his heavy 
boots, which the porter of the hotel had ironed 
that very morning with four stout nails, expert in 
wielding his ice-axe, he scarcely needed the hand 
of a guide, and then less to support him than to 
show him the way. The smoked glasses moder- 
ated the reflections of the glacier, which a recent 
avalanche had powdered with fresh snow, and 
through which little spaces of a glaucous green 
showed themselves here and there, slippery and 
treacherous. Very calm, confident through expe- 
rience that there was not the slightest danger, Tar- 
tarin walked along the verge of the crevasses with 
their smooth, iridescent sides stretching downward 
indefinitely, and made his way among the sdracs , 
solely intent on keeping up with the Swedish 
student, an intrepid walker, whose long gaiters with 
their silver buckles marched, thin and lank, beside 
his alpenstock, which looked like a third leg. 
Their philosophical discussion continuing, in spite 
of the difficulties of the way, a good stout voice, 
familiar and panting, could be heard in the frozen 
space, sonorous as the swell of a river: “ You 
know me, Otto. . 

Bompard all this time was undergoing misadven* 


324 Tartarin on the Alps . 

tures. Firmly convinced, up to that very morn- 
ing, that Tartarin would never go to the length of 
his vaunting, and would no more ascend Mont 
Blanc than he had the Jungfrau, the luckless cou- 
rier had dressed himself as usual, without nailing 
his boots, or even utilizing his famous invention for 
shoeing the feet of soldiers, and without so much 
as his alpenstock, the mountaineers of the Chimbo- 
razo never using them. Armed only with a little 
switch, quite in keeping with the blue ribbon of his 
hat and his ulster, this approach to the glacier 
terrified him, for, in spite of his tales, it is, of 
course, well understood that the Impostor had 
never in his life made an ascension. He was some- 
what reassured, however, on seeing from the top of 
the moraine with what facility Tartarin made his 
way on the ice; and he resolved to follow him as 
far as the hut on the Grands-Mulets, where it was 
intended to pass the night. He did not get there 
without difficulty. His first step laid him flat on 
his back; at the second he fell forward on his 
hands and knees: “ No, thank you, I did it on pur- 
pose,” he said to the guides who endeavoured to 
pick him up. “ American fashion, v£! . . as they 
do on the Chimborazo.” That position seeming to 
be convenient, he kept it, creeping on four paws, 
his hat pushed back, and his ulster sweeping the 
ice like the pelt of a gray bear; very calm, withal, 
and relating to those about him that in the Cordil- 
leras of the Andes he had scaled a mountain thirty 
thousand feet high. He did not say how much time 
it took him, but it must have been long, judging by 


Hotel Baltet at Chamonix. 


325 

this stage to the Grands-Mulets, where he arrived 
an hour after Tartarin, a disgusting mass of muddy 
snow, with frozen hands in his knitted gloves. 

In comparison with the hut on the Guggi, that 
which the commune of Chamonix has built on the 
Grands-Mulets is really comfortable. When Bom- 
pard entered the kitchen, where a grand wood-fire 
was blazing, he found Tartarin and the Swedish 
student drying their boots, while the hut-keeper, a 
shrivelled old fellow with long white hair that fell 
in meshes, exhibited the treasures of his little 
museum. 

Of evil augury, this museum is a reminder of all 
the catastrophes known to have taken place on the 
Mont Blanc for the forty years that the old man 
had kept the inn, and as he took them from their 
show-case, he related the lamentable origin of each 
of them. . . This piece of cloth and those waist- 
coat buttons were the memorial of a Russian 
savant , hurled by a hurricane upon the Brenva 
glacier. . . These jaw teeth were all that remained 
of one of the guides of a famous caravan of eleven 
travellers and porters who disappeared forever in 
a tourmente of snow. . . In the fading light and the 
pale reflection of the nave's against the window, the 
production of these mortuary relics, these monoto- 
nous recitals, had something very poignant about 
them, and alb the more because the old man soft- 
ened his quavering voice at pathetic items, and 
even shed tears on displaying a scrap of green veil 
worn by an English lady rolled down by an ava- 
lanche in 1827. 


326 Tartarin on the Alps. 

In vain Tartarin reassured himself by dates* 
convinced that in those early days the Company 
had not yet organized the ascensions without 
danger ; this Savoyard vocero oppressed his heart, 
and he went to the doorway for a moment to 
breathe. 

Night had fallen, engulfing the depths. The 
Bossons stood out, livid, and very close ; while the 
Mont Blanc reared its summit, still rosy, still 
caressed by the departed sun. The Southerner 
was recovering his serenity from this smile of 
nature when the shadow of Bompard rose behind 
him. 

“ Is that you, Gonzague. . . As you see, I am 
getting the good of the air. . . He annoyed me, 
that old fellow, with his stories.” 

“ Tartarin,” said Bompard, squeezing the arm 
of the P. C. A. till he nearly ground it, “ I hope 
that this is enough, and that you are going to put 
an end to this ridiculous expedition.” 

The great man opened wide a pair of astonished 
eyes. 

“ What stuff are you talking to me now? ” 

Whereupon Bompard made a terrible picture of 
the thousand deaths that awaited him; crevasses, 
avalanches, hurricanes, whirlwinds . . . 

Tartarin interrupted him : — 

“Ah! vat, you rogue; and the Company? 
Isn’t Mont Blanc managed like the rest?” 

“Managed?., the Company?..” said Bom- 
pard, bewildered, remembering nothing whatever 
of his tarasconade, which Tartarin now repeated 


Hotel Baltet at Chamonix. 327 

to him word for word — Switzerland a vast Asso- 
ciation, lease of the mountains, machinery of the 
crevasses ; on which the former courier burst out 
laughing. 

“ What ! you really believed me ? . . Why, 
that was a galejade , a fib. . . Among us Taras- 
conese you ought surely to know what talking 
means. . 

“ Then,” asked Tartarin, with much emotion, 
“the Jungfrau was not prepared f ” 

“ Of course not.” 

“ And if the rope had broken? . 

“ Ah ! my poor friend. . .” 

The hero closed his eyes, pale with retrospective 
terror, and for one moment he hesitated. . . This 
landscape of polar cataclysm, cold, gloomy, yawn- 
ing with gulfs . . . those laments of the old hut- 
man still weeping in his ears. . . Outre ! what will 
they make me do? . . Then, suddenly, he thought 
of the folk at Tarascon, of the banner to be un- 
furled “ up there,” and he said to himself that with 
good guides and a trusty companion like Bom- 
pard . . . He had done the Jungfrau . . . why 
should n’t he do Mont Blanc? 

Laying his large hand on the shoulder of his 
friend, he began in a virile voice : — 

“ Listen to me, Gonzague. . 


328 


Tartarin on the Alps . 


XIII. 

The catastrophe . 

On a dark, dark night, moonless, starless, skyless, 
on the trembling whiteness of a vast ledge of snow, 
slowly a long rope unrolled itself, to which were 
attached in file certain timorous and very small 
shades, preceded, at the distance of a hundred feet, 
by a lantern casting a red light along the way. 
Blows of an ice-axe ringing on the hard snow, the 
roll of the ice blocks thus detached, alone broke 
the silence of the on which the steps of the 

caravan made no sound. From minute to minute, 
a cry, a smothered groan, the fall of a body on the 
ice, and then immediately a strong voice sounding 
from the end of the rope : “ Go gently, Gonzague, 
and don’t fall.” For poor Bompard had made up 
his mind to follow his friend Tartarin to the sum- 
mit of Mont Blanc. Since two in the morning — 
it was now four by the president’s repeater — the 
hapless courier had groped along, a galley slave 
on the chain, dragged, pushed, vacillating, balk- 
ing, compelled to restrain the varied exclamations 
extorted from him by his mishaps, for an avalanche 
was on the watch, and the slightest concussion, a 
mere vibration of the crystalline air, might send 


The Catastrophe . 329 

down its masses of snow and ice. To suffer in 
silence ! what torture to a native of Tarascon ! 

But the caravan halted. Tartarin asked why. A 
discussion in low voice was heard ; animated 
whisperings : “ It is your companion who won’t 
come on,” said the Swedish student. The order 
of march was broken ; the human chaplet returned 
upon itself, and they found themselves all at the 
edge of a vast crevasse, called by the mountaineers 
a roture . Preceding ones they had crossed by 
means of a ladder, over which they crawled on 
their hands and knees; here the crevasse was 
much wider and the ice-cliff rose on the other 
side to a height of eighty or a hundred feet. It 
was necessary to descend to the bottom of the 
gully, which grew smaller as it went down, by 
means of steps cut in the ice, and to reascend in 
the same way on the other side. But Bompard 
obstinately refused to do so. 

Leaning over the abyss, which the shadows 
represented as bottomless, he watched through the 
damp vapour the movements of the little lantern 
by which the guides below were preparing the 
way. Tartarin, none too easy himself, warmed his 
own courage by exhorting his friend : “ Come 
now, Gonzague, zou! ” and then in a lower voice 
coaxed him to honour, invoked the banner, Taras 
con, the Club. . . 

“ Ah ! vat, the Club indeed ! . . I don’t belong 
to it,” replied the other, cynically. 

Then Tartarin explained to him where to set his 
feet, and assured him that nothing was easier. 


330 Tartarin on the Alps. 

“ For you, perhaps, but not for me. . 

“ But you said you had a habit of it. . 

“ Bl ! yes ! habit, of course . . . which habit? I 
have so many . . . habit of smoking, sleeping . . 

“ And lying, especially,” interrupted the presi- 
dent. 

“ Exaggerating — come now!” said Bompard, 
not the least in the world annoyed. 

However, after much hesitation, the threat of 
leaving him there all alone decided him to go 
slowly, deliberately, down that terrible miller’s 
ladder. . . The going up was more difficult, for 
the other face was nearly perpendicular, smooth 
as marble, and higher than King Rene’s tower at 
Tarascon. From below, the winking light of the 
guides going up, looked like a glow-worm on 
the march. He was forced to follow, however, for 
the snow beneath his feet was not solid, and gur- 
gling sounds of circulating water heard round a 
fissure told of more than could be seen at the 
foot of that wall of ice, of depths that were send- 
ing upward the chilling breath of subterranean 
abysses. 

“ Go gently, Gonzague, for fear of falling. . 

That phrase, which Tartarin uttered with tender 
intonations, almost supplicating, borrowed a solemn 
signification from the respective positions of the 
ascensionists, clinging with feet and hands one 
above the other to the wall, bound by the rope and 
the similarity of their movements, so that the fall 
or the awkwardness of one put all in danger. And 
what danger! coquin de sort! It sufficed to hear 


The Catastrophe . 331 

fragments of the ice-wall bounding and dashing 
downward with the echo of their fall to imagine 
the open jaws of the monster watching there below 
to snap you up at the least false step. 

But what is this ? . . Lo, the tall Swede, next 
above Tartarin, has stopped and touches with his 
iron heels the cap of the P. C. A. In vain the 
guides called: “Forward!..” And the presi- 
dent : “ Go on, young man ! . .” He did not stir. 
Stretched at full length, clinging to the ice with 
careless hand, the Swede leaned down, the glim- 
mering dawn touching his scanty beard and giving 
light to the singular expression of his dilated eyes, 
while he made a sign to Tartarin : — 

“ What a fall, hey? if one let go. . .” 

“ Outre! I should say so . . . you would drag us 
all down. . . Go on ! ” 

The other remained motionless. 

“ A fine chance to be done with life, to return 
into chaos through the bowels of the earth, and 
roll from fissure to fissure like that bit of ice which 
I kick with my foot. . And he leaned over 
frightfully to watch the fragment bounding down- 
ward and echoing endlessly in the blackness. 

“ Take care ! . .” cried Tartarin, livid with 
terror. Then, desperately clinging to the oozing 
wall, he resumed, with hot ardour, his argument of 
the night before in favour of existence. “ There ’s 
good in it. . . What the deuce ! . . At your age, 
a fine young fellow like you. . . Don’t you believe 
in love, que ! ” 

No, the Swede did not believe in it. Ideal love 


332 Tartarin on the Alps. 

is a poet’s lie ; the other, only a need he had never 
felt. . . 

“ BJ ! yes ! b£ ! yes ! . . It is true poets lie, they 
always say more than there is ; but for all that, she 
is nice, the femellan — that’s what they call 
women in our parts. Besides, there ’s children, 
pretty little darlings that look like us.” 

“ Children ! a source of grief. Ever since she 
had them my mother has done nothing but weep.” 

“ Listen, Otto, you know me, my good friend. . .” 

And with all the valorous ardour of his soul 
Tartarin exhausted himself to revive and rub to 
life at that distance this victim of Schopenhauer and 
of Hartmann, two rascals he ’d like to catch at the 
corner of a wood, coquin de sort ! and make them 
pay for all the harm they had done to youth. . . 

Represent to yourselves during this discussion 
the high wall of freezing, glaucous, streaming ice 
touched by a pallid ray of light, and that string of 
human beings glued to it in echelon, with ill- 
omened rumblings rising from the yawning depth, 
together with the curses of the guides and their 
threats to detach and abandon the travellers. Tar- 
tarin, seeing that no argument could convince the 
madman or clear off his vertigo of death, suggested 
to him the idea of throwing himself from the 
highest peak of the Mont Blanc. . . That indeed ! 
that would be worth doing, up there ! A fine end 
among the elements. . . But here, at the bottom 
of a cave. . . Ah ! vai, what a blunder ! . . And 
he put such tone into his words, brusque and yet 
persuasive, such conviction, that the Swede allowed 


333 


The Catastrophe . 

himself to be conquered, and there they were, at 
last, one by one, at the top of that terrible roture . 

They were now unropcd, and a halt was called 
for a bite and sup. It was daylight; a cold wan 
light among a circle of peaks and shafts, over- 
topped by the Mont Blanc, still thousands of feet 
above them. The guides were apart, gesticulating 
and consulting, with many shakings of the head. 
Seated on the white ground, heavy and huddled 
up, their round backs in their brown jackets, they 
looked like marmots getting ready to hibernate. 
Bompard and Tartarin, uneasy, shocked, left the 
young Swede to eat alone, and came up to the 
guides just as their leader was saying with a grave 
air : — 

“ He is smoking his pipe ; there ’s no denying it.” 

‘‘Who is smoking his pipe?” asked Tartarin. 

“ Mont Blanc, monsieur; look there. ..” 

And the guide pointed to the extreme top oi 
the highest peak, where, like a plume, a white 
vapour floated toward Italy. 

“ Et autremain , my good friend, when the Mont 
Blanc smokes his pipe, what does that mean ? ” 

“ It means, monsieur, that there is a terrible 
wind on the summit, and a. snow-storm which will 
be down upon us before long. And I tell you, 
that’s dangerous.” 

“ Let us go back,” said Bompard, turning green ; 
and Tartarin added : — 

“ Yes, yes, certainly ; no false vanity, of course.” 

But here the Swedish student interfered. He 
had paid his money to be taken to the top of 


334 Tartarin on the Alps . 

Mont Blanc, and nothing should prevent his get- 
ting there. He would go alone, if no one would 
accompany him. “ Cowards ! cowards ! ” he added, 
turning to the guides ; and he uttered the insult in 
the same ghostly voice with which he had roused 
himself just before to suicide. 

“ You shall see if we are cowards. . . Fasten to 
the rope and forward ! ” cried the head guide. 
This time, it was Bompard who protested energeti- 
cally. He had had enough, and he wanted to be 
taken back. Tartarin supported him vigorously. 

“ You see *very well that that young man is 
insane. . .” he said, pointing to the Swede, who 
had already started with great strides through the 
heavy snow-flakes which the wind was beginning 
to whirl on all sides. But nothing could stop the 
men who had just been called cowards. The mar- 
mots were now wide-awake and heroic. Tartarin 
could not even obtain a conductor to take him 
back with Bompard to the Grands-Mulets. Besides, 
the way was very easy ; three hours’ march, count- 
ing a detour of twenty minutes to get round that 
roiure , if they were afraid to go through it alone. 

“ Outre ! yes, we are afraid of it . . .” said 
Bompard, without the slightest shame ; and the two 
parties separated. 

Bompard and the P. C. A. were now alone. They 
advanced with caution on the snowy desert, fas- 
tened to a rope : Tartarin first, feeling his way 
gravely with his ice-axe; filled with a sense of 
responsibility and finding relief in it. 

“ Courage ! keep cool ! . . We shall get out of 


335 


The Catastrophe . 

it all right/' he called to Bompard repeatedly. It 
is thus that an officer in battle, seeking to drive 
away his own fear, brandishes his sword and shouts 
to his men: “ Forward ! s. n. de D. ! . . all balls 
don’t kill.” 

At last, here they were at the end of that 
horrible crevasse. From there to the hut there 
were no great obstacles; but the wind blew, and 
blinded them with snowy whirlwinds. Further 
advance was impossible for fear of losing their way. 

“ Let us stop here for a moment,” said Tartarin. 
A gigantic strac of ice offered them a hollow at its 
base. Into it they crept, spreading down the 
india-rubber rug of the president and opening a 
flask of rum, the sole article of provision left them 
by the guides. A little warmth and comfort fol- 
lowed thereon, while the blows of the ice-axes, 
getting fainter and fainter up the height, told them 
of the progress of the expedition. They echoed 
in the heart of the P. C. A. like a pang of regret for 
not having done the Mont Blanc to the summit. 

“ Who '11 know it? ” returned Bompard, cynically. 
“ The porters kept the banner, and Chamonix 
will believe it is you.” 

“You are right,” cried Tartarin, in a tone of 
conviction; “the honour ofTarascon is safe. . .” 

But the elements grew furious, the north-wind 
a hurricane, the snow flew in volumes. Both were 
silent, haunted by sinister ideas ; they remembered 
those ill-omened relics in the glass case of the old 
inn-keeper, his laments, the legend of that Ameri- 
can tourist found petrified with cold and hunger, 


336 Tartarin on the Alps. 

holding in his stiffened hand a note-book, in which 
his agonies were written down even to the last 
convulsion, which made the pencil slip and the 
signature uneven. 

“ Have you a note-book, Gonzague?” 

And the other, comprehending without further 
explanation : — 

“ Ha ! vat, a note-book ! . . If you think I am 
going to let myself die like that American ! . . 
Quick, let ’s get on ! come out of this.” 

“ Impossible. . . At the first step we should be 
blown like straws and pitched into some abyss.” 

“Well then, we had better shout; the Grands- 
Mulets is not far off. . .” And Bompard, on his 
knees, in the attitude of a cow at pasture, lowing, 
roared out, “ Help ! help ! help ! . .” 

“ To arms ! ” shouted Tartarin, in his most sonor- 
ous chest voice, which the grotto repercussioned 
in thunder. 

Bompard seized ' his arm : “ Horrors ! the sf- 
rac /. .” Positively the whole block was trem- 
bling ; another shout and that mass of accumulated 
icicles would be down upon their heads. They 
stopped, rigid, motionless, wrapped in a horrid 
silence, presently broken by a distant rolling sound, 
coming nearer, increasing, spreading to the horizon, 
and dying at last far down, from gulf to gulf. 

“ Poor souls ! ” murmured Tartarin, thinking of 
the Swede and his guides caught, no doubt, and 
swept away by the avalanche. 

Bompard shook his head : “ We are scarcely better 
off than they,” he said. 


337 


The Catastrophe . 

And truly, their situation was alarming ; but they 
did not dare to stir from their icy grotto, nor to 
risk even their heads outside in the squall. 

To complete the oppression of their hearts, from 
the depths of the valley rose the howling of a 
dog, baying at death. Suddenly Tartarin, with 
swollen eyes, his lips quivering, grasped the hands 
of his companion, and looking at him gently, 
said : — 

“Forgive me, Gonzague, yes, yes, forgive me. 
I was rough to you just now; I treated you as a 
liar. . ” 

“ Ah ! vat. What harm did that do me?” 

“ I had less right than any man to do so, for I 
have lied a great deal myself, and at this supreme 
moment I feel the need to open my heart, to free 
my bosom, to publicly confess my imposture. . .” 

“ Imposture, you ? ” 

“ Listen to me, my friend. . . In the first place, 
I never killed a lion.” 

“ I am not surprised at that,” said Bompard, 
composedly. “ But why do you worry yourself for 
such a trifle? . . It is our sun that does it . . . we 
are born to lies. . . Vi l look at me. . . Did I ever 
tell the truth since I came into the world? As 
soon as I open my mouth my South gets up into 
my head like a fit. The people I talk about I never 
knew; the countries, I've never set foot in them; 
and all that makes such a tissue of inventions that 
I can’t unravel it myself any longer.” 

“ That ’s imagination, pichhe ! ” sighed Tartaiin ; 
“ we are liars of i magination.” 

22 


338 Tartarin on the Alps. 

“ And such lies never do any harm to any one ; 
whereas a malicious, envious man, like Coste- 
calde . . ” 

“ Don’t ever speak to me of that wretch,” inter- 
rupted the P. C. A. ; then, seized with a sudden 
attack of wrath, he shouted : “ Coquin de boil sort ! 
it is, all the same, rather vexing. . He stopped, 
at a terrified gesture from Bompard, “ Ah ! yes, 
true . . . the serac ; ” and, forced to lower his tone 
and mutter his rage, poor Tartarin continued his 
imprecations in a whisper, with a comical and 
amazing dislocation of the mouth, — “ yes, vexing 
to die in the flower of one’s age through the fault 
of a scoundrel who at this very moment is taking 
his coffee on the Promenade ! . 

But while he thus fulminated, a clear spot began 
to show itself, little by little, in the sky. It snowed 
no more, it blew no more ; and blue dashes tore 
away the gray of the sky. Quick, quick, en route ; 
and once more fastened to the same rope, Tartarin, 
who took the lead as before, turned round, put a 
finger on his lips, and said : — 

“ You know, Gonzague, that all we have just 
been saying is between ourselves.” 

“ Tl ! pardi. . .” 

Full of ardour, they started, plunging to their 
knees in the fresh snow, which had buried in its 
immaculate cotton-wool all the traces of the cara- 
van ; consequently Tartarin was forced to consult 
his compass every five minutes. But that Taras- 
conese compass, accustomed to warm climates, had 
been numb with cold ever since its arrival in 


The Catastrophe . 


339 


Switzerland. The needle whirled to all four quar- 
ters, agitated, hesitating; therefore they deter- 
mined to march straight before them, expecting 
to see the black rocks of the Grands-Mulets rise 
suddenly from the uniform silent whiteness of the 
slope, the peaks, the turrets, and aiguilles that sur- 
rounded, dazzled, and also terrified them, for who 
knew what dangerous crevasses it concealed be- 
neath their feet? 

“ Keep cool, Gonzague, keep cool ! ” 

“That’s just what I can’t do,” responded Bom- 
pard, in a lamentable voice. And he moaned : 
“ Ate , my foot! . . die , my leg! . . we are lost; 
never shall we get there. . .” 

They had walked for over two hours when, about 
the middle of a field of snow very difficult to climb, 
Bompard called out, quite terrified : — 

“ Tartarin, we are going up ! ” 

“Eh! parbleu! I know that well enough,” re- 
turned the P. C. A., almost losing his serenity. 

“ But according to my ideas, we ought to be 
going down.” 

“ B£ ! yes! but how can I help it? Let’s go 
on to the top, at any rate; it may go down on 
the other side.” 

It went down certainly — and terribly, by a suc- 
cession of nMs and glaciers, and quite at the end 
of this dazzling scene of dangerous whiteness a 
little hut was seen upon a rock at a depth which 
seemed to them unattainable. It was a haven that 
they must reach before nightfall, inasmuch as they 
had evidently lost the way to the Grands-Mulets, 


340 Tartarin on the Alps . 

but at what cost ! what efforts ! what dangers, per- 
haps ! 

“ Above all, don’t let go of me, Gonzague, 
quit . . ” 

“ Nor you either, Tartarin.” 

They exchanged these requests without seeing 
each other, being separated by a ridge behind 
which Tartarin disappeared, being in advance and 
beginning to descend, while the other was going 
up, slowly and in terror. They spoke no more, 
concentrating all their forces, fearful of a false step, 
a slip. Suddenly, when Bompard was within three 
feet of the crest, he heard a dreadful cry from 
his companion, and at the same instant, the rope 
tightened with a violent, irregular jerk. . . He 
tried to resist, to hold fast himself and save his 
friend from the abyss. But the rope was old, 
no doubt, for it parted, suddenly, under his 
efforts. 

“Outre!” 

“Boufret” 

The two cries crossed each other, awful, heart- 
rending, echoing through the silence and solitude, 
then a frightful stillness, the stillness of death that 
nothing more could trouble in that waste of eternal 
snows. 

Towards evening a man who vaguely resembled 
Bompard, a spectre with its hair on end, muddy, 
soaked, arrived at the inn of the Grands-Mulets, 
where they rubbed him, warmed him, and put him 
to bed, before he could utter other words than 


The Catastrophe . 34 1 

these — choked with tears, and his hands raised to 
heaven: “ Tartarin . . . lost! . . broken rope. . . ” 
At last, however, they were able to make out the 
great misfortune which had happened. 

While the old hut-man was lamenting and add- 
ing another chapter to the horrors of the mountain, 
hoping for fresh ossuary relics for his charnel 
glass-case, the Swedish youth and his guides, who 
had returned from their expedition, set off in 
search of the hapless Tartarin with ropes, ladders, 
in short a whole life-saving outfit, alas ! unavail- 
ing. . . Bompard, rendered half idiotic, could give 
no precise indications as to the drama, nor as to 
the spot where it happened. They found nothing 
except, on the Dome du Gouter, one piece of rope 
which was caught in a cleft of the ice. But that 
piece of rope, very singular thing ! was cut at both 
ends, as with some sharp instrument; the Cham- 
bery newspapers gave a facsimile of it, which 
proved the fact. 

Finally, after eight days of the most conscientious 
search, and when the conviction became irresistible 
that the poor president would never be found, that 
he was lost beyond recall, the despairing delegates 
started for Tarascon, taking with them the unhappy 
Bompard, whose shaken brain was a visible result 
of the terrible shock. 

“ Do not talk to me about it,” he replied when 
questioned as to the accident, “ never speak to me 
about it again ! ” 

Undoubtedly the White Mountain could reckon 
one victim the more — and what a victim ! 


342 


Tartarin on the Alps . 


XIV. 

Epilogue. 

A REGION more impressionable than Tarascon 
was never seen under the sun of any land. At 
times, of a fine festal Sunday, all the town out, 
tambourines a-going, the Promenade swarming, tu- 
multuous, enamelled with red and green petticoats, 
Arlesian neckerchiefs, and, on big multi-coloured 
posters, the announcement of wrestling-matches for 
men and lads, races of Camargue bulls, etc., it is all- 
sufficient for some wag to call out: “ Mad dog! ” 
or “ Cattle loose ! ” and everybody runs, jostles, 
men and women fright themselves out of their wits, 
doors are locked and bolted, shutters clang as with 
a storm, and behold Tarascon, deserted, mute, not 
a cat, not a sound, even the grasshoppers them- 
selves lying low and attentive. 

This was its aspect on a certain morning, which, 
however, was neither a fete-day nor a Sunday; 
the shops closed, houses dead, squares and alleys 
seemingly enlarged by silence and solitude. Vasia 
silentio } says Tacitus, describing Rome at the 
funeral of Germanicus; and that citation of his 
mourning Rome applies all the better to Tarascon, 
because a funeral service for the soul of Tartarin 
was being said at this moment in the cathedral, 


Epilogue. 343 

where the population en masse wept for its hero, 
its god, its invincible leader with double muscles, 
left lying among the glaciers of Mont Blanc. 

Now, while the death-knell dropped its heavy 
notes along the silent streets, Mile. Tournatoire, 
the doctor’s sister, whose ailments kept her always 
at home, was sitting in her big armchair close to 
the window, looking out into the street and listening 
to the bells. The house of the Tournatoires was on 
the road to Avignon, very nearly opposite to that 
of Tartarin ; and the sight of that illustrious home to 
which its master would return no more, that gar- 
den gate forever closed, all, even the boxes of the 
little shoe-blacks drawn up in line near the en- 
trance, swelled the heart of the poor spinster, con- 
sumed for more than thirty years with a secret 
passion for the Tarasconese hero. Oh, mystery of 
the heart of an old maid ! It was her joy to watch 
him pass at his regular hours and to ask herself: 
“Where is he going? . .” to observe the permu- 
tations of his toilet, whether he was clothed as an 
Alpinist or dressed in his suit of serpent-green. 
And now ! she would see him no more ! even the 
consolation of praying for his soul with all the 
other ladies of the town was denied her. 

Suddenly the long white horse head of Mile. 
Tournatoire coloured faintly; her faded eyes with 
a pink rim dilated in a remarkable manner, while 
her thin hand with its prominent veins made the 
sign of the cross . . He ! it was he, slipping along 
by the wall on the other side of the paved road. . . 
At first she thought it an hallucinating appari- 


344 Tartarin on the Alps . 

tion. . . No, Tartarin himself, in flesh and blood, 
only paler, pitiable, ragged, was creeping along that 
wall like a beggar or a thief. But in order to ex- 
plain his furtive presence in Tarascon, it is neces- 
sary to return to the Mont Blanc and the Dome du 
Gouter at the precise instant when, the two friends 
being each on either side of the ridge, Bompard 
felt the rope that bound them violently jerked as if 
by the fall of a body. 

In reality, the rope was only caught in a cleft of 
the ice; but Tartarin, feeling the same jerk, be- 
lieved, he too, that his companion was rolling 
down and dragging him with him. Then, at that 
supreme moment — good heavens ! how shall I 
tell it? — in that agony of fear, both, at the same 
instant, forgetting their solemn vow at the Hotel 
Baltet, with the same impulse, the same instinctive 
action, cut the rope, — Bompard with his knife, Tar- 
tarin with his axe ; then, horrified at their crime, 
convinced, each of them, that he had sacrificed his 
friend, they fled in opposite directions. 

When the spectre of Bompard appeared at the 
Grands-Mulets, that of Tartarin was arriving at the 
tavern of the Avesailles. How, by what miracle? 
after what slips, what falls? Mont Blanc alone 
could tell. The poor P. C. A. remained for two 
days in a state of complete apathy, unable to utter 
a single sound. As soon as he was fit to move 
they took him down to Courmayeur, the Italian 
Chamonix. At the hotel where he stopped to 
recover his strength, there was talk of nothing but 
the frightful catastrophe on Mont Blanc, a perfect 


Epilogue. 345 

pendant to that on the Matterhorn : another Alpin- 
ist engulfed by the breaking of the rope. 

In his conviction that this meant Bompard, 
Tartarin, torn by remorse, dared not rejoin the 
delegation, or return to his own town. He saw, in 
advance, on every lip, in every eye, the question : 
“ Cain, what hast thou done with thy brother? . 
Nevertheless, the lack of money, deficiency of 
linen, the frosts of September which were begin- 
ning to thin the hostelries, obliged him to set out 
for home. After all, no one had seen him commit 
the crime. . . Nothing hindered him from invent- 
ing some tale, no matter what . . . and so (the 
amusements of the journey lending their aid), he 
began to feel better. But when, on approaching 
Tarascon, he saw, iridescent beneath the azure 
heavens, the fine sky-line of the Alpines, all, all 
grasped him once more ; shame, remorse, the fear 
of justice, and, to avoid the notoriety of arriving 
at the station, he left the train at the preceding 
stopping-place. 

Ah ! that beautiful Tarasconese highroad, all 
white and creaking with dust, without other shade 
than the telegraph poles and their wires, erected 
along the triumphal way he had so often trod at 
the head of his Alpinists and the sportsmen of 
caps. Would they now have known him, he, the 
valiant, the jauntily attired, in his ragged and filthy 
clothes, with that furtive eye of a tramp looking 
out for gendarmes? The atmosphere was burning, 
though the season was late, and the watermelon 
which he bought of a marketman seemed to him 


346 Tartarin on the Alps . 

delicious as he ate it in the scanty shade of the 
barrow, while the peasant exhaled his wrath 
against the housekeepers of Tarascon, all of them 
absent from market that morning “ on account of a 
black mass being sung for a man of the town who 
was lost in a hole, over there in the Swiss moun- 
tains . . . Te ! how the bells rang. . . You can hear 
’em from here. . 

No longer any doubt. For Bompard were those 
lugubrious chimes of death, which a warm breeze 
wafted through the country solitudes. 

What an accompaniment of the return of the 
great Tartarin to his native towm ! 

For one moment, one, when the gate of the little 
garden hurriedly opened and closed behind him 
and Tartarin found himself at home, when he saw 
the little paths with their borders so neatly raked, 
the basin, the fountain, the gold fish (squirming as 
the gravel creaked beneath his feet), and the baobab 
giant in its mignonette pot, the comfort of that 
cabbage-rabbit burrow wrapped him like a security 
after all his dangers and adversities. . . But the 
bells, those cursed bells, tolled louder than ever; 
their black heavy notes fell plumb upon his heart 
and crushed it again. In funereal fashion they 
were saying to him : “ Cain, what hast thou done 
with thy brother? Tartarin, where is Bompard? ” 
Then, without courage to take one step, he sat 
down upon the hot coping of the little basin and 
stayed there, broken down, annihilated, to the 
great agitation of the gold fish. 

The bells no longer toll. The porch of the 


347 


Epilogue . 

cathedral, lately so resounding, is restored to 
the mutterings of the beggarwoman sitting by the 
door, and to the cold immovability of its stone 
saints. The religious ceremony is over; all Taras- 
con has gone to the Club of the Alpines, where, in 
solemn session, Bompard is to tell the tale of the 
catastrophe and relate the last moments of the 
P. C. A. Besides the members of the Club, 
many privileged persons of the army, clergy, no- 
bility, and higher commerce have taken seats in 
the hall of conference, the windows of which, wide 
open, allow the city band, installed below on the 
portico, to mingle a few heroic or plaintive notes 
with the remarks of the gentlemen. An enormous 
crowd, pressing around the musicians, is standing 
on the tips of its toes and stretching its necks in 
hopes to catch a fragment of what is said in session. 
But the windows are too high, and no one would 
have any idea of what was going on without the 
help of two or three urchins perched in the branches 
of a tall linden who fling down scraps of informa- 
tion as they are wont to fling cherries from a tree : 

“ Vi, there ’s Costecalde, trying to cry. Ha ! the 
beggar ! he ’s got the armchair now. . . And that 
poor Bezuquet, how he blows his nose ! and his 
eyes are all red ! . . Til they’ve put crape on the 
banner. . . There ’s Bompard, coming to the table 
with the three delegates. . . He has laid something 
down on the desk. . . He ’s speaking now. . . It 
must be fine ! They are all crying. . . ” 

In truth, the grief became general as Bompard 
advanced in his narrative. Ah ! memory had come 


348 Tartarin on the Alps . 

back to him — imagination also. After picturing 
himself and his illustrious companion alone on the 
summit of Mont Blanc, without guides (who had 
all refused to follow them on account of the bad 
weather), alone with the banner, unfurled for five 
minutes on the highest peak of Europe, he re- 
counted, and with what emotion ! the perilous 
descent and fall ; Tartarin rolling to the bottom of 
a crevasse, and he, Bompard, fastening himself to 
a rope two hundred feet long in order to explore 
that gulf to its very depths. 

“ More than twenty times, gentlemen — what am 
I saying? more than ninety times I sounded that 
icy abyss without being able to reach our un- 
fortunate pr<fsidain, whose fall, however, I was able 
to prove by certain fragments left clinging in the 
crevices of the ice. . . ” 

So saying, he spread upon the table-cloth a 
fragment of a tooth, some hairs from a beard, a 
morsel of waistcoat, and one suspender buckle ; 
almost the whole ossuary of the Grands-Mulets. 

In presence of such an exhibition the sorrowful 
emotions of the assembly could not be restrained ; 
even the hardest hearts, the partisans of Costecalde, 
and the gravest personages — Cambalalette, the 
notary, the doctor, Tournatoire — shed tears as big 
as the stopper of a water-bottle. The invited 
ladies uttered heart-rending cries, smothered, how- 
ever, by the sobbing howls of Excourbanies and 
the bleatings of Pascalon, while the funeral march 
of the drums and trumpets played a slow and 
lugubrious bass. 


349 


Epilogue . 

Then, when he saw the emotion, the nervous 
excitement at its height, Bompard ended his tale 
with a grand gesture of pity toward the scraps and 
the buckles, as he said : — 

“ And there, gentlemen and dear fellow-citizens, 
there is all that I recovered of our illustrious and 
beloved president. . . The remainder the glacier 
will restore to us in forty years. . . ” 

He was about to explain, for ignorant persons, 
the recent discoveries as to the slow but regular 
movement of glaciers, when the squeaking of a 
door opening at the other end of the room inter- 
rupted him ; some one entered, paler than one of 
Home’s apparitions, directly in front of the orator. 

“ VI ! Tartarin ! . . ” 

“ Til Gonzague ! . . ” 

And this race is so singular, so ready to believe 
all improbable tales, all audacious and easily re- 
futed lies, that the arrival of the great man whose 
remains were still lying on the table caused only 
a very moderate amazement in the assembly. 

“ It is a misunderstanding, that’s all,” said Tar- 
tarin, comforted, beaming, his hand on the shoulder 
of the man whom he thought he had killed. “ I 
did Mont Blanc on both sides. Went up one way 
and came down the other ; and that is why I was 
thought to have disappeared.” 

He did not mention that he had come down on 
his back. 

“ That damned Bompard ! ” said Bezuquet ; “ all 
the same, he harrowed us up with his tale. . . ” 
And they laughed and clasped hands, while the 


350 


Tartarin on the Alps. 

drums and trumpets, which they vainly tried to 
silence, went madly on with Tartarin’s funeral 
march. 

“ VI! Costecalde, just see how yellow he is ! . . ” 
murmured Pascalon to Bravida, pointing to the 
gunsmith as he rose to yield the chair to the 
rightful president, whose good face beamed. Bra- 
vida, always sententious, said in a low voice as he 
looked at the fallen Costecalde returning to his 
subaltern rank : “ ‘ The fate of the Abbe Mandaire, 
from being the rector he now is vicairel ” 

And the session went on. 


ARTISTS’ WIVES. 






































































ARTISTS’ WIVES. 


PROLOGUE. 

Two friends, a poet and a painter, stretched out 
upon a broad studio divan, cigar in mouth, were 
talking together one evening after dinner. 

It was the hour of expansiveness, of confidences. 
The lamp shone softly beneath its shade, its circle of 
light guarding the privacy of the conversation and 
making it difficult to distinguish the fanciful mag- 
nificence of the high walls, crowded with pictures, 
stands of arms, hangings, and ending at the top in a 
skylight through which the dark blue sky could be 
plainly seen. 

A portrait of a lady, bending forward slightly as 
if to listen, alone stood partly forth from the shadow, 
— a young lady, with intelligent eyes, a serious, 
kindly mouth and a bright smile which seemed to 
defend her husband’s easel against fools and dis- 
couraging friends. A low chair moved back from 
the fire and two tiny blue shoes lying on the carpet 
indicated the presence of a child in the house ; and, 
in fact, from the adjoining room, where the mother 
and her baby had just disappeared, came bursts of 
23 


354 


Artists Wives . 


rippling laughter, soft murmurings, and all the 
charming tumult of a nest preparing for sleep. 
All these things combined to permeate that artis- 
tic fireside with a perfume of family happiness 
which the poet inhaled with delight. 

“ There is no doubt about it, my dear fellow,” he 
said to his friend, “ you have done the right thing. 
There is only one way to be happy. This is hap- 
piness, this and nothing else. You must find me a 
wife.” 

THE PAINTER. 

Faith ! no, not if I know myself! Find a wife 
for yourself if you ’re bent on it. For my part I ’ll 
have nothing to do with it. 

THE POET. 

Why not, pray? 

THE PAINTER. 

Because — because artists ought not to marry. 

THE POET. 

This is a little too much. You dare to say that 
in this room, and the lamp doesn’t suddenly go out, 
the walls do not fall on your head ! Why, just think, 
you wretch, that you have been for two hours ex- 
hibiting to me and making me long for this happi- 
ness which you forbid me to seek. In God’s name, 
are you like one of those wicked rich men whose 
pleasure is increased tenfold by the sufferings of 
other people, and who enjoy their own chimney 
corner the more when they think that it rains 
out-of-doors and that there are some poor devils 
without a roof to shelter them ? 


355 


Prologue . 

THE PAINTER. 

Think what you choose of me. I am too fond of 
you to help you to make a fool of yourself, irrep- 
arably. 

THE POET. 

Come, come! What does this mean? Aren’t 
you satisfied? Why, it seems to me that one 
inhales happiness here as freely as one inhales 
the free air of heaven at an open window in the 
country. 

THE PAINTER. 

You are right. I am happy, perfectly happy. 
I love my wife with all my heart. When I think of 
my child, I laugh with pure delight. Marriage has 
been to me a harbor where the water is calm and 
safe, not of the sort in which one makes fast to a 
ring on the shore at the risk of lying there and 
rusting forever, but one of those little blue coves 
in which one repairs sails and spars for new voyages 
to unknown lands. I have never worked so well 
as since my marriage, and my best pictures have 
all been painted since then. 

THE POET. 

Well, then, what in the devil — 

THE PAINTER. 

My dear fellow, at the risk of making myself appear 
a conceited idiot, I will tell you that I consider my 
good fortune a sort of miracle, something abnor- 
mal and exceptional. Yes, the more clearly I see 
what marriage is, the more appalled I am at my 


35 ^ 


Artists' Wives . 


own luck. I am like the man who has passed 
through a great peril without discovering or sus- 
pecting it, and who trembles when it is all over, 
stupefied by his own audacity. 

THE POET. 

But what are these terrible perils? 

THE PAINTER. 

The first and greatest of all is the danger of los- 
ing one’s talent, of going backward. That is a mat- 
ter of some importance to an artist, I presume. 
For observe that I am not now speaking of the or- 
dinary conditions of life. I agree that in general 
marriage is an excellent thing, and that most men 
do not begin to amount to anything until the fam- 
ily puts the finishing touches to them or increases 
their stature. Often, indeed, it is a professional 
necessity. A bachelor notary is inconceivable. 
He would not have the sedate, portly bearing. 
But for all of us — poets, painters, sculptors, musi- 
cians — who live outside of life, engaged solely in 
studying it, in reproducing it, and keeping always 
a short distance away from it, as one steps back 
from a picture in order to see it better, — for us, I 
say, marriage is advisable only in exceptional cases. 
The nervous, exacting, impressionable creature, the 
man-child whom people call an artist, requires a 
special type of woman, almost impossible to find, 
and the surest way is not to seek it. Ah ! how well 
Delacroix, the great Delacroix whom you admire so 
much, understood that ! What a beautiful life he 


357 


Prologue . 

led, bounded by the walls of his studio, devoted 
exclusively to art ! I was looking at his cottage 
at Champrosay the other day, and that little garden, 
like some country cure’s, filled with roses, where 
he walked all alone for twenty years ! The place 
has the tranquillity and narrow limits of celibacy. 
But just imagine Delacroix married, a paterfamilias, 
worrying about children to bring up, money and 
sickness ; do you think his work would have been 
what it was ? 

THE POET. 

You cite Delacroix, I reply with Victor Hugo. 
Do you think that marriage was any obstacle to 
him in writing so many admirable books? 

THE PAINTER. 

I think that marriage was not an obstacle to him 
in any respect. But all husbands have not the 
genius to obtain forgiveness, nor a great sun of 
glory to dry the tears they cause to flow. More- 
over it must be amusing to be the wife of a man of 
genius. There are roadmenders’ wives who are 
happier. 

THE POET. 

It’s a curious thing, upon my word, to hear this 
argument against marriage from a married man 
who is happy in his marriage. 

THE PAINTER. 

I tell you again that what I say is not based on my 
own experience. My opinion is formed from all 
the sad sights I have seen elsewhere, from all the 


Artists' Wives . 


358 

misunderstandings which are so frequent in artists’ 
households, caused by our abnormal lives and 
nothing else. Look at that sculptor, who, in the 
prime of life, and just when his talent has reached 
its fullest maturity, has expatriated himself, left his 
wife and children to shift for themselves. Public 
opinion has condemned him, and I certainly shall 
not make excuses for him. And yet how well I 
can understand how he was driven to that step ! 
There was a fellow who adored his art, who had a 
perfect horror of society and of social relations. 
His wife, albeit a good-hearted and intelligent 
woman, instead of removing him from surround- 
ings which were uncongenial to him, condemned 
him for ten years to comply with social obligations 
of all sorts. In like manner she forced him to 
make a lot of official busts, stupid worthies in vel- 
vet caps, overdressed women utterly devoid of 
charm ; she interrupted him ten times a day to 
receive unwelcome callers, and every evening laid 
out his dress suit and light gloves and dragged 
him from salon to salon. You will say that he 
should have rebelled, should have answered 
squarely, “ No ! ” But don’t you know that the 
very fact that our lives are so sedentary makes us 
more dependent than other men on our fireside? 
The air of the house envelops us, and unless a 
suggestion of the iddal is mingled with it, it dulls 
our faculties and soon fatigues us. Moreover the 
artist, as a general rule, puts all the force and 
energy he possesses into his work, and after his 
solitary, patient struggles finds himself without 


Prologue . 359 

strength of will to contend with the trivial annoy- 
ances of life. With him feminine tyranny has an 
easy time. No other class of men is so easily 
subdued, conquered. But beware ! He must not 
be made to feel the yoke too heavily. If it happens 
some day that the invisible bonds by which he is 
cunningly held captive are drawn a little too tight, 
if they impede his artistic efforts, he will break 
them all at a single blow, distrusting his own weak- 
ness, and fly, like our sculptor, beyond the 
mountains. 

His wife was utterly astounded by his desertion. 
The poor soul is still asking herself, “ What did 
1 do to him?” Nothing. She did n’t understand 
him. For to be a real helpmeet to an artist it is 
not enough to be good-hearted and intelligent. A 
woman must have unlimited tact, must be able to 
sacrifice herself with a smiling face; and it is a 
miraculous thing to find those qualities in a young 
woman, who is ignorant of life and curious about 
it. She is pretty, she has married a man who is 
well-known and received everywhere. Damnation ! 
of course she likes to be seen hanging on his arm. 
Isn’t that natural enough? The husband, on the 
other hand, who has become more of a savage 
since he has been working more successfully, and 
finds the days too short and the task unpleasant, 
refuses to exhibit himself. They are both unhappy, 
and whether the man yields or resists, his life is 
thenceforth deranged, diverted from its tranquil 
current. Ah ! how many of those ill-assorted 
couples I have known, where the wife was some- 


Artists Wives. 


3 60 

times executioner, sometimes victim, oftener execu- 
tioner than victim, and almost always without 
suspecting it ! Why, the other evening, I was at 
Dargenty, the composer’s. We begged him to 
play us something. He had hardly begun one of 
those pretty mazurkas with variations, which en- 
title him to be called Chopin’s heir, when his wife 
began to talk, at first in an undertone, then a little 
louder. The conversation spread from one to 
another. In a moment nobody but myself was 
listening. Thereupon he closed the piano and 
said to me with a smile, but with a distressed air : 
“ It ’s always like that here — my wife does n’t care 
for music.” Can you imagine anything more 
terrible ? Think of marrying a woman who does n’t 
care for your art ! Nay, take my advice, my dear 
fellow, and don’t marry. You are alone, you are 
free. Cling jealously to your solitude and your 
freedom. 


THE POET. 

Parblen ! you talk very airily about solitude. 
A few moments hence, when I have gone, if an 
artistic idea comes into your mind, you will calmly 
work it out beside your dying fire, without feeling 
all about you that atmosphere of isolation, so vast, 
so empty that inspiration evaporates and vanishes 
therein. But assuming for a moment that it is well 
to be alone in one’s hours for work — there are 
moments of weariness, of discouragement, when 
one is doubtful of one’s self, of one’s art. At such 
moments it must be a blessed thing to have beside 


Prologue . 361 

you, always faithful and ready, a loving heart into 
which you can pour out your chagrin, with no fear 
of disturbing a confidence, an enthusiastic admira- 
tion that are unalterable. And the child — is not 
that baby smile, appearing constantly and without 
cause, the best moral rejuvenation a man can have? 
Ah ! I have often thought of that. To us artists, 
vain like all those who live on success, on that 
superficial, capricious, fickle esteem which is called 
vogue — to us above all men children are indis- 
pensable. They alone can console us for growing 
old. All that we lose the child gains. If we have 
failed to achieve success, we say to ourselves, 
“ He will succeed ; ” and, as our own hair vanishes, 
we have the joy of watching it grow again, curly, 
and golden, and vigorous, on a fair little head by 
our side. 


THE PAINTER. 

Ah ! poet, poet — have you thought too of all 
the mouthfuls one must stick on the end of a pen 
or a brush, to feed a brood? 

THE POET. 

Nay, say what you will, the artist is made for 
domestic life ; and that is so true that those of us 
who do not marry put up with second-hand house- 
holds, like those travellers who, tired of being 
always without a fixed abode, install themselves 
finally in a lodging-house chamber and pass their 
lives under the spell of the vulgar sign : “ Rooms 
by the day or month.” 


3 62 


Artists' Wives. 


THE PAINTER. 

They make a great mistake. They subject 
themselves to all the annoyances of married life 
and never know its joys. 

THE POET. 

You admit, then, that it has some joys? 

At this point the painter, instead of replying, 
rose, turned over a mass of drawings and sketches 
until he found a crumpled parcel of manuscript, 
then returned to his companion. 

“ We might discuss this subject a long while,” 
he said, “without convincing each other. But 
since you are determined to make a trial of 
marriage, in spite of my observations, I urge you 
to read this little work. It was written — mark 
what I say — by a married man, very much in love 
with his wife, very happy in his home, — a man of 
an inquisitive turn of mind, who, as he passes his 
life among artists, has amused himself by sketch- 
ing some of the households of which I was speak- 
ing just now. From the first line to the last this 
book is true, so true that the author has never 
cared to print it. Read it, and come and see me 
when you have read it. I fancy you will have 
changed your ideas.” 

The poet took the package and carried it home ; 
but he did not take proper care of it, for I 
have been able to detach a few leaves from the 
little book, and I now boldly offer them to the 
public. 


Madame Heurtebise . 


363 


I. 

MADAME HEURTEBISE. 

SHE certainly was not made to marry an artist, 
especially that terrible, passionate, tumultuous, 
exuberant fellow, who went about in the world 
with his nose in the air and bristling moustache, 
bearing with a swagger, as a challenge to all 
absurd conventions, to all bourgeois prejudices, 
his strange and mettlesome name of Heurtebise. 
How, by what miracle, did that little woman, reared 
in a jeweller’s shop, behind rows of watch-chains 
and rings hung on a cord, succeed in fascinating 
that poet? 

Imagine the charms of a shop-girl, — characterless 
features, cold eyes always smiling, a placid, good- 
natured countenance, no genuine refinement, but a 
certain fondness for tinsel and glitter, which she 
had acquired doubtless in her father’s shop, and 
which caused her to affect bows of multi-colored 
satin, belts and buckles ; and, with all the rest, hair 
dressed by a hair-dresser and well saturated with 
cosmetics over-hanging a narrow, self-willed fore- 
head, where the absence of wrinkles was not so 
much an indication of youth as of utter lack of 
ideas. Heurtebise fell in love with her, such as 
she was, asked for her hand, and, as he had some 
means, had little difficulty in obtaining it. 


Artists' Wives . 


3^4 

The attraction that she found in this marriage 
was the idea of marrying an author, a well-known 
man who would give her as many tickets to the 
play as she wanted. As for him, I fancy that that 
false shop-girl refinement, those pretentious man- 
ners, pursed lips, little finger in the air, had 
dazzled him as the acme of Parisian distinction, 
for he was born a peasant, and always remained 
one at bottom, despite his intellect. 

Tempted by the idea of placid happiness, of 
that domestic life of which he had so long been 
deprived, Heurtebise passed two years away from 
his friends, burying himself in the country, in out- 
of-the-way corners of the suburbs, always within 
range of the great city, which disturbed his serenity 
and whose atmosphere he sought to breathe in a 
weakened form, like those invalids for whom sea 
air is prescribed, but who, being too delicate to 
endure it, breathe it at a distance of a few 
miles. From time to time his name appeared 
in a newspaper, in a review, at the end of an 
article ; but we already missed that vigorous style, 
those outbursts of eloquence, which had been 
characteristic of his work. We thought : “ He is 
too happy — his happiness is spoiling him.” 

But one day he reappeared among us, and we 
saw plainly enough that he was not happy. His 
pale face, his contracted features, distorted by a 
constant nervous twitching, his former violence of 
manner reduced to nervous irritability, his hearty, 
ringing laugh already cracked, made him an en- 
tirely different man. Too proud to admit that he 


Madame Heurtebise . 


365 

had made a mistake, he did not complain ; but his 
old friends, to whom he reopened his house, soon 
became convinced that he had made the most 
foolish of marriages, and that he was off the rails 
for the rest of his life. On the other hand, Madame 
Heurtebise, after two years of wedlock, appeared 
to us just as we had seen her in the sacristy on the 
wedding-day, — the same placid, simpering smile, 
the same air of a shop-girl dressed in her Sunday 
best; but she had acquired self-assurance. She 
talked now. In the artistic discussions upon which 
Heurtebise embarked with intense earnestness, 
with peremptory judgments, brutal contempt, or 
blind enthusiasm, he would suddenly be inter- 
rupted by his wife’s bland, false voice, forcing him 
to listen to some idle argument, some absurd 
reflection, always outside of the subject. He, 
annoyed and embarrassed, would look at us with 
an apologetic glance and try to resume the inter- 
rupted conversation. At last, in face of the down- 
right, persistent contradiction, the inanity of that 
little brain, as empty as an unfledged bird’s, he 
would hold his peace, resigning himself to let her 
go on to the end. But his silence always exasper- 
ated madame, seemed to her more insulting, more 
disdainful than all the rest. Her bitter-sweet voice 
would become shrill and piercing, would sting and 
buzz with the irritating persistency of a fly, until 
the husband, driven to frenzy, would break out in 
his turn, brutal and terrifying. 

From these incessant quarrels, which ended in 
tears, she would come forth refreshed, more bloom- 


Artists' Wives . 


366 

ing than ever, like a lawn after being watered ; but 
he was always nervous, feverish, incapable of any 
sort of work. Gradually his very violence became 
exhausted. One evening when I had been pres- 
ent at one of these painful scenes, as Madame 
Heurtebise left the table in triumph I saw on her 
husband’s face, which had been downcast during 
the quarrel but which he then raised, an expression 
indicating a depth of contempt, of anger that words 
could not express. With flushed cheeks and eyes 
swimming in tears, his mouth distorted by an iron- 
ical, heart-breaking smile, when the little woman 
left the room, closing the door sharply behind her, 
he looked after her with a horrible grimace of 
frenzy and pain, like an urchin making a wry face 
at his master’s back. After a moment I heard 
him mutter in a voice choked by emotion : 
“ Ah ! if it were n’t for the child, how quickly I 
would cut loose ! ” 

For they had a child, a handsome, dirty little 
creature, who crawled about in all the corners, 
played with dogs bigger than himself, or in the 
dirt, or with the spiders in the garden. The 
mother did not look at him except to remark that 
he was “ disgusting ” and to regret that she had not 
put him out to nurse. She had in truth clung to 
her traditions as a petty shop-keeper’s child, and 
the disorder of their apartments, where she ap- 
peared early in the morning in elaborate gowns 
and remarkable headgear, recalled the backshops 
so dear to her heart, the rooms dark with dirt and 
lack of air, whither the tradesman hurries in the 


Madame Heurtebise . 


367 


entr’actes of commercial life to eat an ill-cooked 
meal in hot haste, on a clothless table, with one 
ear listening all the time for the bell of the shop- 
door. In that circle nothing is of importance save 
the street, the street where purchasers and idlers 
pass, and that throng of people making holiday 
who fill the sidewalks and roadway on Sundays. 
Imagine therefore how bored she must have been 
in the country, poor creature ! how she regretted 
her Paris ! Heurtebise, on the other hand, needed 
the air of the fields for the health of his mind. 
Paris made him as giddy as a provincial on his 
first visit. The wife could not understand it, and 
complained bitterly of her exile. To divert her 
thoughts she invited some of her old friends to 
visit her. Then, if her husband was not at home, 
they amused themselves fumbling among his pa- 
pers, his memoranda, the works he had in hand. 

“Just see, my dear, what a strange creature he 
is. He shuts himself up to write this stuff. He 
paces the floor, he talks to himself. For my part, 
I don’t in the least understand what he ’s doing.” 

And there were endless regrets, sighs for what 
might have been. 

“ Ah ! if I had known. When I think that I 
might have married Aubertot and Fajon, the linen- 
drapers ! ” 

She always mentioned the two partners together, 
as if she might have married the firm. In her 
husband’s presence she was equally unceremoni- 
ous. She interfered with his plans, prevented him 
from working, selecting the very room where he 


Artists Wives . 


368 

was writing for the senseless chattering of a parcel 
of idle women who talked very loud, being full of 
contempt for that trade of literary man, which 
brings in so little, while its most laborious hours 
always resemble capricious idleness. 

From time to time Heurtebise tried to escape 
from that life, which was, he felt, becoming more 
ominous of disaster every day. He would run 
away to Paris, hire a room at a hotel, and try to 
fancy that he was a bachelor; but suddenly he 
would think of his son, and, impelled by a wild 
longing to embrace him, would return home the 
same evening. On such occasions, to avoid a 
scene on his return, he would take a friend with 
him and keep him as long as he could. When he 
was not alone with his wife, his fine intellect awoke 
once more and his interrupted plans of work would 
gradually come back to him one after another. 
But what a wrench when his visitor took his leave ! 
He would do his utmost to detain him, would 
cling to him with all the force of his ennui. With 
what a dejected mien he would accompany us to 
the office of the little surburban omnibus which 
took us back to Paris, and, when we had gone, 
how slowly he would return along the dusty road, 
with bent back and arms hanging inertly at his 
side, listening to the rumble of the receding 
wheels ! 

For existence with his wife alone had become 
unendurable to him. To avoid it he adopted the 
course of having the house always full. With the 
concurrence of his kind heart, his ennui, his heed- 


Madame Heurtebise . 369 

lessness, he surrounded himself with all the starve- 
lings of literature. A pack of literary valets, lazy, 
crack-brained, visionary, were more at home in 
his house than he himself was; and as his wife 
was very foolish, incapable of judging men, she 
thought them delightful, superior to her husband, 
because they made more noise. Days passed in 
idle discussions. There was a constant hurly- 
burly of unmeaning words, powder wasted on 
sparrows, and poor Heurtebise, sitting motionless 
and silent amid all that pother, contented himself 
by smiling and shrugging his shoulders. Some- 
times, however, when, at the end of an intermi- 
nable repast, all his guests, with their elbows on the 
cloth around the decanter of brandy, began one 
of those long, vagrant conversations as stifling as 
pipe-smoke, a terrible feeling of disgust would 
assail him, and, lacking the strength to turn the 
wretches out of his house, he would go away him- 
self and remain away for a week at a time. 

“ My house is full of idiots,” he said to me one 
day. “ I don’t dare go back there.” Leading 
such a life as that, he ceased altogether to write. 
His name was rarely seen, and his fortune, squan- 
dered to satisfy this constant craving to have 
people in his house, found its way into the hands 
that were stretched out to him. 

We had not met for a long while when one 
morning, I received a line in his dear little hand- 
writing, formerly so firm, now hesitating and 
trembling: “We are in Paris. Come and see 
me. I am bored to death.” I found him with 


370 


Artists Wives . 


his wife, his child, and his dogs, in a dreary little 
apartment at Batignolles. The disorder, having 
no space to spread itself out, seemed even more 
horrible than in the country. While the child and 
the dogs rolled on the floor in rooms about the 
size of checker-boards, Heurtebise lay in bed, ill, 
with his face to the wall, in a state of utter prostra- 
tion. The wife, still pretentiously dressed, still 
perfectly placid, hardly looked at him. “ I don’t 
know what ’s the matter with him,” she said to me 
with a careless wave of the hand. When he saw 
me he recovered his gayety, his hearty laugh for 
a moment, but they were stifled at once. As 
they had continued in Paris the habits adopted in 
the suburbs, a parasite appeared at the breakfast 
hour in that poverty-stricken household turned 
topsy-turvy by disease, — a bald, threadbare, re- 
pellent little man who was called in the house 
“ the man who has read Proudhon.” That was 
the title by which Heurtebise, who probably had 
never known his name, presented him to every- 
body. When he was asked, “Who is that?” he 
would reply with conviction, “ Oh ! he’s a very 
bright fellow, who has read Proudhon a great 
deal.” It was hardly apparent, by the way, for 
that profound mind never manifested itself at table 
except to complain of a badly cooked roast or an 
unsuccessful sauce. On that morning the man 
who had read Proudhon declared that the break- 
fast was detestable, a fact which did not prevent 
him from devouring half of it all by himself. 

How long and dreary that meal by the sick 


Madame Heurtebise. 


37i 


man’s bedside seemed to me ! The woman chat- 
tered away as always, with an occasional slap for 
the child, a bone for the dogs, or a smile for the 
philosopher. Not once did Heurtebise turn in 
our direction ; and yet he was not asleep. I do 
not know whether he was thinking. Dear, brave- 
hearted fellow ! The springs of his energetic 
nature were broken in these constant, paltry quar- 
rels, and he was already beginning to die. This 
silent agony, which was rather a renunciation of 
life, lasted several months ; then Madame Heurte- 
bise found herself a widow. Thereupon as her 
tears had not dimmed her bright eyes, as she was 
still as careful as ever of her glossy tresses, and 
as Aubertot and Fajon were still eligible, she 
married Aubertot and Fajon. Perhaps Aubertot, 
perhaps Fajon, perhaps both. In any event she 
was able to resume the life for which she was 
adapted, the ready chatter and everlasting smile 
of the shop-girl. 


372 


Artists Wives . 


II. 

THE CREDO OF LOVE. 

She had always dreamed of that, to be the wife 
of a poet ! But implacable destiny arranged for 
her, instead of the romantic and feverish existence 
to which she aspired, wedded bliss of a very tran- 
quil sort, by marrying her to a rich annuitant of 
Auteuil, a mild and amiable person, albeit a little 
too old for her, and with but one passion, at 
once inoffensive and restful, — horticulture. The 
excellent man passed his time, pruning-knife in 
hand, nursing and trimming a magnificent collec- 
tion of rose-bushes, heating the hot-house, water- 
ing the flower-beds ; and on my word ! you will 
surely agree that for a poor little heart starving 
for the ideal, there was insufficient pasturage 
there. For ten years, however, her life went on, 
as straight and uniform as the paths, strewn with 
fine gravel, of her husband’s garden ; and she 
followed it, counting her steps, listening with an 
air of resigned weariness to the sharp, irritating 
snap of the ever-active scissors, or the monoton- 
ous, endless shower falling from the nozzles of the 
watering-pots upon the plants and shrubbery. 
The fanatical horticulturist took the same minute 
care of his wife as of his flowers. He watched 


373 


The Credo of Love . 

the temperature of her salon, which was always 
filled with bouquets, took precautions in her 
behalf against frost in April and the hot sun in 
March ; and with his eyes fixed on the barometer 
and the variations of the moon, forced her to live 
by fixed rules, like the plants in tubs which are 
put out-of-doors and taken in at stated times. 

She lived in this way for a long while, imprisoned 
within the four walls of the conjugal garden, as 
innocent as a clematis, but with aspirations toward 
other less regular, less bourgeois gardens, where 
the rose-bushes would put forth all their branches, 
where the wild plants would grow taller than 
trees and be laden with fantastic, unfamiliar 
flowers, at liberty beneath a warmer sun. Such 
gardens are found nowhere save in books written 
by poets, so she read many verses, unknown to the 
nursery-man, who, for his part, knew nothing of 
poetry beyond the almanac couplets : — 

“ Quand il pleut k la Saint-M^dard, 

II pleut quarante jours plus tard.” 

Gluttonously, with no idea of selection, the poor 
creature devoured the most wretched poems, pro- 
vided only that she found therein rhymes for 
amour and passion / and when she had closed the 
book she would pass hours dreaming and sighing, 
“ That ’s the husband I should have had ! ” 

All this would never probably have passed the 
stage of vague aspirations, had not the irresistible 
Amaury happened to cross her path at the fate- 
ful age of thirty, which is the decisive age for the 


374 


Artists Wives . 


virtue of women, as noon is the decisive hour for 
the beauty of the day. Amaury is a salon poet, 
one of those ethereal creatures in black coat and 
pearl-gray gloves, who go about between ten 
o’clock and midnight, reciting in fashionable salons 
their love-rhapsodies, their despairs, their frenzies, 
leaning with a melancholy air on mantel-pieces, 
in the bright light of the chandeliers, while women 
in ball costume, arranged in a circle, listen behind 
their fans. 

He may be considered an ideal specimen of the 
genus. With the face of a fatalistic cobbler, hol- 
low eye and sallow complexion, he dresses his hair 
a la Russe, and anoints himself plentifully with 
Hungarian pomade. He is one of those despair- 
ridden mortals of the sort that women love ; always 
dressed in the latest style, a congealed lyric poet 
about whom there is nothing to suggest any de- 
rangement of the inspiration except his carelessly 
and loosely tied cravat. And you should hear the 
applause when he recites in his strident voice a pas- 
sage from his poem, the Credo of Love , especially 
the passage which concludes with this astounding 
line : — 

“ But I believe in love as I believe in God.” 

Please observe that I strongly suspect this joker 
of troubling his head as little about God as about 
anything else; but women do not look so close. 
They are easily caught in the birdlime of words ; 
and whenever Amaury recites his Credo of Love, 
you are sure to see all around the salon rows of 


375 


The Credo of Love . 

little pink beaks reaching out for that enticing bait 
of sentiment. Just think of it ! — a poet with such 
lovely moustaches, who believes in love as he 
believes in God ! 

The nursery-man’s wife did not resist. In three 
sittings she was vanquished. But, as there was a 
substratum of virtue and pride in that elegiac 
nature, she did not propose to commit any paltry, 
commonplace sin. Moreover, in his Credo , the 
poet himself declared that he understood only one 
sort of adultery, the sort which goes about with 
head erect, as a challenge to the law and to society. 
Taking the Credo of Love for her guide, therefore, 
the young woman abruptly fled from the garden at 
Auteuil and threw herself into her poet’s arms. 
“I cannot live with that man any longer! Take 
me.” Under such circumstances the husband is 
always called that man , even when he is a nursery- 
man. 

Amaury was stupefied for a moment. How the 
devil could he imagine that a little matron of thirty 
years would take a love-poem seriously and follow 
it to the letter? However, he met his too good 
fortune with a brave heart, and as the lady had 
retained her beauty and bloom in her well-sheltered 
little garden at Auteuil, he took her without a 
murmur. At first it was delightful. They were 
afraid the husband would follow them. They must 
conceal themselves under assumed names, change 
their lodgings, live in unlikely quarters, in the 
suburbs, on the roads surrounding the fortifications. 
Oh, mighty power of the romantic ! The more 


376 


Artists Wives. 


frightened she was, the more precautions they must 
take, — lowered blinds and curtains, — and the 
greater her poet seemed to her. At night they 
would open the little window in their chamber, and 
as they gazed at the stars twinkling above the sig- 
nals of the neighboring railway, she would make 
him repeat again and again his — 

“ But I believe in love as I believe in God.” 

And it was lovely ! 

Unfortunately it did not last. The husband left 
them too undisturbed. What would you have? 
That man was a philosopher. When his wife went 
away he closed the green gate of his oasis and 
returned calmly to the care of his roses, thinking 
with satisfaction that they, at least, having long 
roots in the ground, could not leave his premises. 
Our lovers, relieved from apprehension, returned 
to Paris, and suddenly it seemed to the young 
woman as if somebody else had been substituted 
for her poet. The flight, the fear of being sur- 
prised, the constant alarms, all those things which 
served to feed her passion having ceased to exist, 
she began to understand, to see what she had done. 
Moreover, in the arrangement of their little house- 
hold, and in the thousand commonplace details of 
daily life, the man with whom she was living made 
himself better known to her every moment. 

The small store of generous, heroic, or refined 
sentiments which he possessed, he used in a diluted 
form in his verses, keeping none at all for his per- 
sonal consumption. He was small-minded, selfish, 


377 


The Credo of Love . 

and above all else very niggardly, — a quality which 
love never pardons. Then he had shaved his 
moustaches, and the change was very unbecoming. 
How different he was from that gloomy, handsome 
youth with moustaches curled with tongs, who had 
appeared to her one evening reciting his Credo 
between two candelabra ! Now, in the forced 
retirement he was undergoing because of her, he 
gave free rein to all his whimsies, the most prom- 
inent of which was to think that he was always ill. 
Dame ! by dint of posing as consumptive, one ends 
by imagining that one really is. The poet Amaury 
was forever taking medicines, he swathed himself 
in Fayard paper, covered his mantelpiece with 
phials and powders. For some time the little 
woman took her role of nun seriously. Devotion 
to an invalid afforded at least some excuse for her 
fault, gave her an object in life. But she soon 
wearied of it. In spite of herself, as she sat in the 
stuffy room with the flannel-enveloped poet, she 
thought of her fragrant little garden ; and the ex- 
cellent nursery-man, viewed from afar amid his 
shrubbery and his flower-beds, seemed to her as 
simple and touching and unselfish as the other 
was exacting and selfish. 

At the end of a month she loved her husband, 
really loved him, not with an affection born of 
habit, but with genuine love. One day she wrote 
him a long, passionate, and repentant letter. He 
did not reply. Perhaps he did not think she was 
sufficiently punished as yet. Thereupon she sent 
letter after letter, humbled herself to the dust, 


37 $ 


Artists* Wives . 


begged to be taken back, saying that she would 
rather die than live longer with that man. It was 
the lover’s turn to be called “ that man.” The 
most amusing circumstance is that she wrote with- 
out his knowledge, for she believed that he was 
still in love with her, and, while seeking forgive- 
ness from her husband, she dreaded her lover’s 
passion. 

“ He will never let me go,” she said to herself. 

And so, when by dint of begging she had ob- 
tained her pardon, and the nursery-man — did I 
not tell you that he was a philosopher? — had con- 
sented to take her back, her return to the conjugal 
dwelling had all the mysterious, dramatic features 
of a flight. She positively forced her husband to 
kidnap her. One evening when the poet, weary 
of life a deux and very proud of his newly grown 
moustaches, had gone into society to recite his 
Credo of Love , she jumped into a cab in which her 
old husband was waiting for her at the end of the 
street ; and thus did she return to her little garden 
at Auteuil, forever cured of her ambition to be a 
poet’s wife. To be sure, the poet was not much 
of a poet ! 


La Trasteverina. 


379 


III. 

LA TRASTEVERINA. 

The play had just come to an end. While the 
audience, variously impressed, rushed out-of-doors, 
undulating in the light on the broad staircase of 
the theatre, some friends, of whom I was one, 
awaited the poet at the stage door, to congratulate 
him. His work had not, however, met with tre- 
mendous success. It was too powerful for the 
timid, commonplace imagination of the present- 
day audience, and it was too large for the frame of 
the stage, the accepted limit of conventions and 
legitimate liberties. The pedantic critic had said, 
“ It is not adapted to the stage ! ” and the sneerers 
of the boulevard avenged themselves for the emo- 
tion the magnificent lines had afforded them by 
repeating, “ That play won’t make any money ! ” 
But we were proud of our friend, who had dared 
to send forth those beautiful golden rhymes, the 
whole swarm from his hive, to hum and flutter 
about the artificial, deadly sun of the chandeliers, 
and to present characters in their natural size, 
without troubling himself about the optical qual- 
ities of the modern theatre, dim opera-glasses, or 
poor eyes. 

The poet approached us, among the scene- 
shifters, firemen, and dancers, wrapped in mufflers, 


Artists Wives . 


38° 

his tall figure bent double, his coat-collar shiver- 
ingly turned up around his scanty beard, and his 
long hair already turning gray. He had an air of 
dejection. The applause of the claque and of the 
men of intelligence, being confined to a small 
portion of the hall, seemed to him to foreshadow 
a very small number of performances, small and 
select audiences, and a speedy removal of his name 
from the advertisements, before it had had time to 
make an impression on the public. When you 
have worked hard for twenty years, when you are 
in the prime of life and your talents have attained 
their full maturity, this unwillingness of the public 
to understand you is wearisome and discouraging. 
You reach the point of saying to yourself, “ Per- 
haps they are right.” You are afraid, you are no 
longer certain of yourself. Our congratulations, 
our enthusiastic hand-clasps encouraged him a 
little. “Really, do you think so? Is it as good 
as that? To be sure, I did all that I could do.” 
And his hands, burning with fever, clung anxiously 
to ours ; his tearful eyes craved a sincere, reassur- 
ing glance. It was the agonizing supplication of 
the sick man asking the physician, “ Is there any 
hope for me?” Yes, poet, there is hope for you. 
When the operettas and fairy extravaganzas which 
have hundreds of performances and tens of thou- 
sands of spectators, have been long forgotten, have 
taken flight with their last poster, your work will 
still be young and full of life. 

While we were standing there on the deserted 
sidewalk, exhorting him and cheering him up, a 


La Trasteverina . 381 

loud contralto voice, enervated by an Italian ac- 
cent, exploded in our midst. 

“ H£ ! artist, enough poetry ! Let ’s go home 
and eat the estoufato /” 

At the same moment a stout lady enveloped in 
a hood and a plaid cape with red squares, passed 
her arm through our friend’s with such a brutal, 
despotic gesture that his face and his bearing at 
once showed its effects. 

“ My wife,” he said to us ; then, turning toward 
her with a hesitating smile, — 

“ Suppose we take them along to show them 
how you make the estoufato ?” 

Impelled by her unlimited self-esteem, the Italian 
graciously consented to receive us, and away went 
five or six of us to eat beef a Vttoujfte on the 
heights of Montmartre, where they lived. 

I confess that I was anxious to see that artist’s 
establishment. Our friend had led a very retired 
life since his marriage, almost entirely in the 
country ; but what I knew of his wife aroused my 
curiosity. Fifteen years earlier, when his romantic 
imagination was at the period of its greatest fervor, 
he had met, in the outskirts of Rome, a magnifi- 
cent creature with whom he had fallen deeply in 
love. Maria Assunta lived with her father and a 
whole brood of brothers and sisters, in one of those 
tiny houses in the Trastevere which have their 
feet in the Tiber and an old fishing-boat at the 
foot of their walls. One day he spied this fair 
Italian girl, bare-footed in the sand, in her red 
petticoat with clinging folds, her cotton sleeves 


38 2 


Artists Wives. 


turned up to the shoulder, taking eels from a great 
dripping net. The scales gleaming in the water 
amid the meshes, the golden river, the scarlet 
petticoat, the lovely black eyes, fathomless and 
pensive, made darker in their reverie by the glare 
of sunlight all about, impressed the artist, a little 
vulgarly perhaps, like an engraving on the cover 
of a ballad in a music-dealer’s shop-window. By 
chance the girl’s heart was free, for she had thus 
far loved nobody but a mischievous red cat, a 
huge creature and an expert eel-fisherman as well, 
whose hair stood on end when any one approached 
his mistress. 

Our lover succeeded in taming the whole family, 
man and beast, was married at Santa Maria in 
Trastevere, and brought the fair Assunta to Paris 
with her cato. 

Ah S poverOy he ought also to have brought with 
him a ray of sunlight from the Trastevere, a patch 
of blue sky, the eccentric costume, the reeds of the 
Tiber, and the great twisted cables of the Ponte 
Rotto, — the whole frame with the picture. Then 
he would not have had the cruel disillusionment 
which befell him when, the little family being 
established in a small fourth-floor apartment in the 
highest part of Montmartre, he saw his lovely 
Trasteverina decked out in a hoop-skirt, a dress 
with flounces and ruffles, and a Parisian hat which, 
being always insecurely placed upon the edifice of 
her luxuriant tresses, assumed entirely independent 
attitudes. In the cold and uncompromising light 
of the Parisian sky the poor devil soon discovered 


La Trasteverina. 


383 

that his wife was stupid, irremediably stupid. Those 
fine black eyes, lost in infinite contemplation, did 
not toss one single thought about upon their vel- 
vet waves. They shone animal-like, with the 
tranquillity of a good digestion, with a pleasant 
reflection of the light, nothing more. And more- 
over the lady was vulgar and countrified, accus- 
tomed to govern the whole little world of her 
father’s cabin with a wave of her hand, and the 
slightest resistance aroused terrible fits of anger. 

Who would have dreamed that that mouth 
which, when she was silent, was of the purest 
antique outline, would suddenly open to emit 
insulting epithets in tumultuous, compact waves? 
Without respect for herself or for him, she 
would pick a quarrel with him at the top of 
her voice, in the street, in the theatre, and in her 
jealousy would make terrible scenes. To complete 
her portrait, she had no artistic sentiment, was 
utterly ignorant of her husband’s profession, of the 
French language, customs, everything. As the 
little French which he taught her served only to 
make her forget Italian, she had composed a sort 
of half-and-half jargon, which was comical to the 
last degree. In fact, this love-story, after begin- 
ning like one of Lamartine’s poems, was ending 
like a novel by Champfleury. After trying for 
a long while to civilize his savage, the poet became 
convinced that he must abandon the attempt. As 
he was too upright to desert her, — perhaps he 
was still in love, — he adopted the course of living 
in retirement, seeing nobody and working hard. 


Artists Wives . 


3^4 

The few intimate friends whom he had admitted to 
his house saw that they embarrassed him and soon 
ceased to go thither. So it was that for fifteen 
years he had lived shut up in his own home, as in 
a leper’s cabin. 

With my mind upon that wretched existence, I 
watched the strange couple walking before me, — 
he tall and thin and slightly bent; she square- 
shouldered and broad, shaking off her shawl which 
annoyed her, for she had a gait as free as a man’s. 
She was in very good humour, talked a great deal, 
and turned from time to time to see if we were 
following, calling those of us whom she knew by 
their first names, familiarly and in a loud tone, em- 
phasizing her words by energetic gestures, as if she 
were hailing a fishing-boat on the Tiber. When 
we reached their domicile, the concierge, enraged 
to see a noisy party enter the house at an un- 
seemly hour, refused to let us go upstairs. There 
was a terrible scene in the hall between her and 
the Italian. We were all standing one above 
another on the steps of the winding staircase, which 
was dimly lighted by the flickering gas-jet, em- 
barrassed and uncomfortable, wondering if we 
ought to take our leave. 

“Come, let’s go up,” said the poet in a low 
voice; and we followed him in silence, while the 
Italian, leaning on the stair-rail, which trembled 
beneath her weight and her wrath, poured forth a 
volley of vituperation, in which Roman oaths 
alternated with the vocabulary of the outer boule- 
vards. What a home-coming for that poet, who 


La Trasteverina . 


385 

had just stirred all artistic Paris to its depths, and 
in whose fever-bright eyes there was still a trace 
of the dazzling joy of his first night ! What a 
humiliating recall to life ! 

Not until we were seated by the fire in his little 
salon was the icy cold atmosphere generated by 
that ridiculous episode dissipated, and we should 
soon have forgotten all about it, had it not been 
for the loud voice and coarse laughter of the 
signora, whom we could hear in the kitchen telling 
her maid how she had given it to that choulato ! 
The table laid and the supper prepared, she came 
and sat down with us, without shawl or hat or veil, 
and I was able to scrutinize her at my leisure. 
She was no longer beautiful. The square face, 
the heavy, broad chin, the coarse hair, now turning 
gray, and above all the vulgar expression of the 
mouth were in striking contrast to the eternal, 
unmeaning reverie of the eyes. With both elbows 
resting on the table, flabby in appearance and 
familiar in manner, she joined in the conversation 
without losing sight of her plate for an instant. 
Just above her head a large portrait signed by 
an illustrious name stood proudly forth from the 
shadow, among the melancholy old lumber in 
the salon ; it was Maria Assunta at twenty. The 
bright purple dress, the milky white of the plaited 
wimple, the brilliancy of the abundant false jewels 
set off magnificently the splendor of a complexion 
like the sun, the velvety shadow of the thick hair 
growing low over the forehead and connected by 
an almost imperceptible down with the superb 


3 86 


Artists Wives . 


straight line of the eyebrows. How could such 
exuberance of life and beauty have developed into 
such coarseness? And while La Trasteverina was 
speaking I questioned with deep interest her pro- 
found, sweet glance upon the canvas. 

The warmth of the feast put her in good humor. 
To enliven the poet, whose heart was doubly 
oppressed by his failure with its slight admixture 
of glory, she slapped him violently on the back 
and laughed with her mouth full, saying in her 
horrible jargon that it was not worth while to 
leave one’s head at the foot of the campanile del 
domo for so small a matter. 

“Ain’t that so, cato?” she added, turning to 
the old tom-cat, helpless with rheumatism, who 
lay snoring in front of the fire. Then suddenly, in 
the midst of an interesting discussion, she shouted 
to her husband in a hoarse voice, with the brutal 
abruptness of a pistol-shot : — 

“ He ! artist, la lampo qui filo ! ” 1 
The poor fellow, interrupting himself, hastily 
turned up the lamp, humbly and submissively, 
eager to avoid the scene which he dreaded, and 
which, in spite of everything, he did not avoid. 

On returning from the theatre, we had stopped 
at the Matson d’Or to buy a bottle of choice wine 
with which to water the estoufato. Maria Assunta 
had carried it religiously under her shawl all the 
way, and on our arrival had placed it on the table, 
where she brooded over it with tender watchful- 
ness, for the Roman women love good wine. Two 
1 The lamp ’s going out. 


L a Trasteverina . 


387 

or three times, distrusting her husband’s absent- 
mindedness and his long arms, she had said to 
him : — 

“ Look out for the boteglia ; you ’ll break it.” 
And when she went to the kitchen to take the 
famous estoufato from the stove with her own 
hand, she cried out to him once more : — 

“ Above all things, don’t break the boteglia ! ” 
Unfortunately, as soon as his wife had left the 
room, the poet seized the opportunity to talk about 
art, the stage, and success, so freely, with such 
energy and profusion of words that — patatras ! — 
as the result of a gesture more eloquent than the 
rest, the wonderful bottle lay on the floor in a 
thousand pieces ! I have never seen such utter 
dismay. He stopped short, turned as pale as 
death. At the same time Assunta’s contralto 
began to rumble in the adjoining room, and the 
Italian appeared in the doorway, with fire in her 
eye, her lips swollen with anger, her face flushed 
with the heat of the stove. 

“ The boteglia ! ” she cried in an awful voice. 

At that he leaned timidly toward me and 
whispered : — 

“ Say that you did it.” 

And the poor devil was so frightened that I 
could feel his long legs trembling under the table. 


3 88 


Artists Wives . 


IV. 

A FAMILY OF SINGERS. 

How could they have failed to love each other, 
— handsome and famous both, singing in the same 
pieces, living every evening through five acts of 
the same artificial, passionate life? One cannot 
play with fire with impunity. Two people cannot 
say to each other twenty times a month, “ I love 
you ! ” to the sighs of the flute and the tremolos of 
the violin, without finally being infected by the 
emotion of their own voices. Sooner or later 
passion comes to them enveloped in harmony, in 
rhythmical surprises, in splendid costumes and 
drop-curtains. It came to them through the win- 
dow which Elsa and Lohengrin throw open to the 
night vibrating with melody and beauty : — 

“Come breathe th’ intoxicating perfume.” 

It glided between the white pillars of the Cap- 
ulets’ balcony, where Romeo and Juliet lingered 
beneath the first rays of dawn. 

“ No, ’t is not the dawn, ’t is not the lark.” 

And it crept softly upon Faust and Marguerite 
in the moon-beam that ascends from the rustic 
bench to the shutters of the little chamber, amid 
the intertwined ivy and flowering rose-bushes. 

“ Let me, oh ! let me gaze upon thy face.” 


A Family of Singers . 389 

Soon all Paris knew of their love and became in- 
terested in it. It was the curiosity of the season. 
People came to admire those two lovely stars grav- 
itating toward each other in the musical sky of the 
Opera. At last, one evening after an enthusiastic 
recall, just as the curtain had fallen, separating the 
wildly applauding audience from the flower-strewn 
stage, where Juliet’s white dress swept the petals 
from the camellias, the two singers were assailed 
by an irresistible impulse, as if their love, hitherto 
slightly artificial, were awaiting only the excitement 
of a great triumph to awake in earnest. Their 
hands met, vows wer-e exchanged, and consecrated 
by the persistent, far-off bravos of the audience. 
The two stars had effected their conjunction. 

After their marriage they were not seen again 
on the stage for some time. But when their leave 
of absence had expired they reappeared, acting in 
the same play. That reappearance was a revela- 
tion. Hitherto the man had always taken pre- 
cedence. Being the older of the two and more 
accustomed to the public, with whose foibles and 
preferences he was familiar, he swayed pit and 
boxes with his voice. Beside him the other 
seemed to be hardly more than an admirably 
gifted pupil, giving promise of future genius; 
her too youthful voice had angles, like her slen- 
der, somewhat thin shoulders. And so, on their 
return to the stage when she appeared in one of 
her familar roles, and the first notes came forth full- 
toned, rich and strong, and pure as the water of a 
living spring, the charm of amazement in the audi- 


390 


Artists' Wives. 


ence was so great that all the interest of the even- 
ing centred about her. For the young woman it 
was one of those blest days when the surrounding 
atmosphere becomes limpid, rare, and vibrating, 
in order to carry the more perfectly all the efful- 
gence, all the adulation of success. As for the hus- 
band, they almost forgot to applaud him, and as 
every dazzling light causes profound darkness in 
its neighborhood, he found himself relegated to the 
darkest corner of the stage, like any supernumerary. 

After all, that passion which had appeared in the 
singer’s acting, in the increased charm and tender- 
ness of her voice, was inspired by him. He alone 
awoke the flame in those profound eyes ; and that 
thought should have made him proud ; but the ac- 
tor’s vanity was too strong. At the end of the play 
he summoned the leader of the claque and scolded 
him savagely. They had failed to applaud when 
he came on and went off; they had forgotten the 
recall after the third act. He would complain to 
the manager. 

Alas ! It made no difference what he said or 
what the claque did, the public favor then accorded 
to his wife remained permanently with her. She 
was extremely fortunate in a series of well-selected 
roles, appropriate to her talent and beauty, which 
she acted with the tranquillity of a society belle 
entering the ball-room dressed in colors which be- 
come her, and sure of an ovation. At each fresh 
triumph the husband seemed depressed, nervous, 
irritable. It seemed to him as if he had been 
robbed of the popularity which had passed beyond 


391 


A Family of Singers . 

hope of recovery from him to her. He tried for a 
long while to conceal from everybody, especially 
from his wife, this unavowable torture; but one 
evening, as she was ascending the stairs to her 
dressing-room, holding up her skirt, which was filled 
with bouquets, with both hands, and as, all aglow 
with her triumph, she said to him in a voice still 
trembling with the emotion caused by the applause, 
“ We had a fine house to-night ! ” he replied, “ Do 
you think so?” in such a bitter, ironical tone that 
the truth suddenly flashed upon the young wife’s 
mind. 

Her husband was jealous ! not with the jealousy 
of a lover who wishes his wife to be beautiful for 
him alone, but with a cold, savage, implacable ar- 
tist’s jealousy. Sometimes, when she stopped at 
the end of an aria, and plaudits fell about her from 
every outstretched hand, he would affect an un- 
moved, distraught countenance, and his absent 
glance seemed to say to the spectators, “ When 
you have finished applauding I will sing.” 

Ah ! when one has once tasted applause, that 
patter as of hail which echoes so sweetly in the corri- 
dors, the wings, the hall, it is impossible to do with- 
out it. Great actors do not die of disease or old 
age ; they cease to exist when the public ceases to 
applaud them. This man, in face of the indiffer- 
ence of his audiences, was actually driven to des- 
peration. He grew thin, he became sullen and 
ill-tempered. To no purpose did he argue with 
himself, look his incurable malady in the face, re- 
peat to himself before going on the stage, — 


392 


Artists' Wives. 


“ But she is my wife. And I love her ! ” 

In the artificial atmosphere of the theatre, the 
genuine sentiment vanished at once. He still loved 
the woman, but he detested the singer. She saw 
it plainly enough, and she kept watch over that 
pitiable mania as one nurses an invalid. At first it 
had occurred to her to minimize deliberately 
her own triumphs, to hold herself back, not put 
forth her whole voice, all her powers ; but her res- 
olutions were no stronger than her husband’s in 
front of the footlights. Her talent went beyond 
her will, almost independently of herself; there- 
upon she humbled herself, made herself small be- 
fore him ; she asked his advice, whether he had 
thought that she did well, whether he read her 
part as she did. 

Naturally, the other was never satisfied. With 
the patronizing air, the tone of false good-fellow- 
ship which actors adopt among themselves, he 
would say to her, on those evenings when she 
had won her greatest triumphs : — 

“Look out for yourself, my girl — things aren’t 
going very well just now — you ’re not making any 
progress.” 

At other times he would try to prevent her 
singing. 

“ Take care, you ’re overtaxing your strength — 
you ’re doing too much. Don’t tire out your luck. 
I tell you, I think you should ask for a leave of 
absence.” 

He even descended to the most stupid pretexts : 
she had a cold, was not in good voice. Or else he 


A Family of Singers . 393 

would seek a quarrel with her in true strolling- 
player fashion : — 

“ You took up the finale of the duo too soon — 
you spoiled my effect. You did it on purpose.” 

He did not realize, the wretch ! that it was really 
he who embarrassed her in her acting, hurried his 
replies to prevent her being applauded, and, in his 
frantic longing to recapture his audiences, monop- 
olized the front of the stage, leaving his wife to 
sing in the background. She did not complain, 
she loved him too dearly. Moreover, triumph 
makes one indulgent, and every evening her success 
forced her to come forth triumphantly into the 
bright light from the darkness where she tried to 
blot herself out, to efface herself. At the theatre 
this strange case of jealousy was soon detected, 
and their comrades were amused by it. They 
overwhelmed the singer with congratulations on his 
wife’s talent. They put before him newspaper 
articles wherein the critic, after four long columns 
devoted to the star, accorded a few lines to the 
almost extinct popularity of the husband. One 
day, after reading one of these articles, he entered 
his wife’s dressing-room in a frenzy, with the news- 
paper open in his hand, and said to her, white with 
anger : — 

“ In God’s name, has this man been your lover? ” 

He descended to that degree of infamy. Thus 
the unhappy woman, feted and envied, whose 
name could now be read in every corner of Paris, 
in huge letters at the top of the posters, and was 
seized upon by tradesmen as a bait for customers 


394 


Artists Wives. 


and printed on the little gilt labels of confectioners 
and perfumers, led the saddest, most humiliated 
life. She dared not open a newspaper for fear of 
reading an article in her own praise; she wept 
over the flowers that were thrown to her, and let 
them wither in a corner of her dressing-room, in 
order not to perpetuate in their home the painful 
memory of her triumphant evenings. She would 
have left the stage, but her husband would not 
listen to it. 

“ People will say that I made you do it.” 

And the horrible torture for them both continued. 

One evening — it was a first performance — the 
actress was just going on the stage. Some one said 
to her : “ Be on your guard. There ’s a hostile 
claque in the hall.” That made her laugh. A 
claque hostile to her ! For what cause, in heaven’s 
name ? She was on good terms with everybody, 
she held aloof from all coteries. And yet it was 
very true. In the middle of the play, during a 
grand duo with her husband, just as her superb 
voice, soaring to the highest point of its register, 
was finishing the phrase with a succession of notes 
as sweet and pure as the pearls of a necklace, a 
volley of hisses stopped her short. The audience 
was as taken aback, as surprised, as she herself. 
Their very breath seemed suspended, held captive 
in their lungs, like the passage she had been unable 
to finish. Suddenly an insane, horrible idea shot 
through her mind. He and she were alone on the 
stage. She gazed fixedly at him and saw the 
gleam of a wicked smile in his eyes. The poor 


395 


A Family of Singers . 

woman understood. Her whole frame shook with 
sobs. She could only burst into tears and disap- 
pear, with streaming eyes, into the obscurity of the 
wings. 

It was her husband who had caused her to be 
hissed ! 


396 


Artists Wives . 


V. 

A MISUNDERSTANDING. 

THE WIFE'S VERSION. 

What is the matter? Why is he angry with me? 
I cannot understand it at all. I have done all that 
I can to make him happy. Mon Dieu ! I don't 
say that I would not have preferred to marry a 
notary , a solicitor , a member of some more sedate , 
less flighty profession, instead of a poet ; but such 
as he was he attracted me. I thought him a little 
high-flown in his ideas , but very pleasant all the 
same , and so well-bred ; and then he had some 
means , and I thought that when he was once mar- 
ried his poetry would not prevent him from looking 
out for a good place , which would put us altogether 
at our ease. He found me to his liking , too , in 
those days. When he came to see me at my aunt's 
in the country , he couldn't find words enough to 
express his admiration of the orderly arra7igement 
of our little house , which was kept as neat as a con- 
vent. “It is amusing !” he used to say. And he 
would laugh and call me by all sorts of names 
taken from the poems and novels he had read. That 
annoyed me a little , I confess ; I would have pre- 
ferred to have him more serious. But not until we 


A Misunderstanding . 


397 


V. 

A MISUNDERSTANDING. 

THE HUSBAND’S VERSION. 

I HAD thought of everything, taken all my pre- 
cautions. I would not have a Parisian, because I 
was afraid of Parisians. I would not have a rich 
woman, who would bring with her a whole train of 
petty tyrannies. I also dreaded the family, that 
terrible network of bourgeois affections which 
monopolize you, imprison you, stifle you, make 
you smaller. My wife was just the sort of person 
I had dreamed of. I said to myself : — 

“ She will owe everything to me. What a de- 
light to train this innocent mind to appreciate 
lovely things ; to admit this pure soul to the secret 
of my enthusiasms, my hopes ; to give life to this 
statue ! ” 

She really had the appearance of a statue, with 
her great eyes, so serious and calm, her regular 
Greek profile, her slightly sharp and severe feat- 
ures, softened, however, by the blending of tones 
common to all youthful faces, by that rose-tinted 
down, the shadow of the hair when brushed back 
from the forehead. Add to this a slight provin- 
cial accent which was my delight, to which I lis- 


398 


A rtists W ives. 


THE WIFE'S VERSION 1 . 

ivere married and installed in Paris did I realize 
the difference between our two natures. 

I, who had dreamed of a light and airy little 
home , tidy and neat , was horrified to see him fill 
our apartment at once with useless pieces of furni- 
ture t long out of fashion , inches deep with dust , and 
with faded tapestries hundreds of years old. It was 
the same way in everything. Just fancy that he 
made me put a very pretty Empire clock zvhich 
came to me from my aunt , and some magnificently 
framed pictures given me by some boarding-school 
friends , into the attic. He thought they were all 
hideous. I am still wondering why. For his study 
was a motley collection of old , smoke-begrimed can- 
vases, statuettes that I was ashamed to look at, 
broken curios, good for nothing, chandeliers cov- 
ered with verdigris, vases that wouldn't hold water, 
and mismatched cups. Beside my lovely violet-wood 
piano he had placed a wretched battered little thing, 
with half the notes gone, and so worn-out that you 
coidd hardly hear it. I began to say to myself : 
“ Well, well! it seems that an artist is a bit of a 
lunatic. He cares for nothing but useless things, 
he despises anything that will serve any useful 
purpose 

When I saw his friends, the people whom he 
received, it was much worse. Men with long hair 
and beards, unkempt, poorly dressed, who had no 
compunctions about smoking in my presence, and 
who made me ill to hear them talk, all their ideas 
were so entirely contrary to mine. It was all long 


A Misunderstanding. 399 

THE HUSBAND’S VERSION, 
tened with closed eyes as to a memory of happy 
childhood, the echo of a tranquil life in some far- 
away, unknown retreat. And to think that now 
that accent has become unendurable to me ! But 
I had faith then. I loved, I was happy, and dis- 
posed to be still more so. Overflowing with 
ardor and love of toil, I had begun a new poem 
as soon as I was married, and in the evening I 
would read her the lines I had written during the 
day. I desired that she should enter completely 
into my life. The first two or three times she 
said, “ That is very pretty,” — and I was grateful 
to her for that childlike approbation, hoping that 
before long she would reach a better understanding 
of the things that made up my life. 

Poor creature ! how I must have tortured her ! 
After reading my lines to her, I would explain 
them, seeking in her lovely, astonished eyes the 
expected gleam, constantly fancying that I saw it. 
I compelled her to give me her opinion, and I 
glided over the foolish things she said, to remem- 
ber only such clever things as chance happened to 
inspire. I would have liked so much to make her 
my true wife, the wife of an artist ! But no ! She 
did not understand. In vain did I read the great 
poets to her, appeal for aid to the most powerful 
and tenderest of them all ; the golden rhymes of 
their poems of love were as wearisome and cold 
to her as a shower. Once, I remember we were 
reading the Nuit d'Octobre; she interrupted me to 
ask me a question on some more serious subject. 


400 


A Mists' Wives . 


THE WIFE’S VERSION. 

words , involved sentences ; nothing natural , nothing 
simple. And with it all not the slightest idea of 
the proprieties ; you might have them to dinner 
twenty times in succession , but never a call, never 
an act of courtesy. Not even a card, a bonbon on 
New Year's Day. Nothing. Some of these gentry 
were married and used to bring their wives . You 
should have seen the sort of creatures they were! 
Superb dresses every day, such as I shall never 
wear, thank God ! And so badly arranged, with - 
out order or method. Fluffy hair, trailing skirts, 
and talents which they displayed with the utmost 
effrontery. There were some who sang like actresses, 
some who played the piano like professors, and they 
all chattered like men on every subject. Is that rea- 
sonable, I ask y 'U ? Is it proper for serious-minded 
women, when they are once married, to think about 
anything but their household cares ? That is what 
I tried to make my husband understand when he 
was distressed because I gave up music. Music is 
all right when one is a small girl and has nothing 
better to do. But, frankly, I should have made a 
very absurd appearance, it seems to me, planting 
myself in front of a piano every day. 

Oh! I am perfectly well aware that his great 
grievance against me is that I tried to remove him 
from that environment which is so dangerous for 
him . “ You have driven away all my friends is 

a charge he often brings against me. Yes, I have 
done it, and I do not repent. Those people would 
have ended by driving him mad. Sometimes, after 


A Misunderstanding . 40 1 

THE HUSBAND’S VERSION. 

Thereupon I tried to explain that there is nothing 
more serious in the world than poetry, which is 
the very essence of life and floats above it like a 
vibrating light into which words and thoughts 
ascend, there to be transfigured. Oh ! the dis- 
dainful smile that played about her pretty mouth, 
and the pitying condescension of her glance ! 
You would have said that it was a child or a 
madman who was speaking to her. 

Ah ! the energy and eloquence I expended 
thus, and all in vain ! Nothing could produce 
any effect. I constantly came in collision with 
what she called common-sense, reason, the ever- 
lasting excuse of cold hearts and narrow minds. 
And poetry is not the only thing that bored her. 
Before we were married I had thought that she 
was a musician. She seemed to understand the 
pieces she played, underscored by her teacher. 
She was no sooner married than she closed her 
piano, gave up her music. Can you imagine any- 
thing sadder than this renunciation by the young 
wife of everything that was attractive in the girl? 
The reply delivered, the play ended, the ingenue 
lays aside her costume. It was all assumed with 
a view to marriage, a superficial gloss of petty 
talents, pretty smiles, and temporary refinement. 
In her case the change was instantaneous. I 
had hoped at first that the taste I could not instil 
in her, appreciation of art, of beautiful things, 
would come to her in spite of herself in this mar- 
vellous Paris where the eyes and mind are refined 


402 


A rtists Wives . 


THE WIFE'S VERSION. 

leaving them , he would pass the whole night making 
paltry rhymes , pacing the room and talking aloud. 
As if he were not odd enough, original enough him- 
self, without people coming to make him worse l 
How many of his whims, his crochets I have put up 
with ! He would suddenly appear in my room in 
the morning. “ Come, put on your hat quickly. We 
are going into the country .” I must drop everything, 
sewing and housework, hire cabs, ride in railway 
cars, a7id spend a lot of money l And when I 
thought of nothing but economizing ! For I tell 
you it takes more than fifteen thousand francs a 
year to be rich in Paris and at the same time 
lay by a little something for your children. In 
the beginning he used to laugh at my remarks , 
and try to make me laugh; then, when he saw 
that I was determined to remain serious, he was 
displeased with me for my simplicity, my domestic 
tastes. Is it my fault, pray, if I detest the theatre , 
concerts , all the artistic functions to which he in- 
sisted on dragging me, and where he met his ac- 
quaintances of the old days, a parcel of hare-brained, 
dissipated bohemians ? 

For a moment I thought that he was gouig to be 
more reasonable. 1 had succeeded in removing him 
from his disgusting circle of intimates , in forming 
a little coterie of sensible, sober-minded people, in 
establishmg connections that might be useful to him . 
But no, Monsieur was bored. He was bored from 
morning till night. At our little e ven ing-pa rties, 
although I provided whist-tables , a tea-table , every- 


403 


A Misunderstanding. 

THE HUSBAND’S VERSION, 
without suspecting it. But what was to be done 
with a woman who does not know how to open a 
book or look at a picture, to whom everything is 
a bore, who does not care to see anything? I real- 
ized that I must resign myself to the prospect of 
having beside me simply a bustling and econom- 
ical — oh! a very economical — housekeeper; the 
wife according to Proudhon, nothing more. I 
would have done the best I could ; so many artists 
are in my plight ! But that modest r61e did not 
satisfy her. 

Little by little, craftily, stealthily, she succeeded 
in driving away all my friends. We were per- 
fectly unconstrained in her presence. We talked 
just as we used to do; and she comprehended 
neither the idealism nor the irony of our artistic 
exaggerations, of those extravagant axioms, those 
paradoxes in which the idea assumes a burlesque 
costume the better to draw forth a smile. It all 
simply irritated and puzzled her. She would sit 
in a corner of the salon, listening without speak- 
ing, firmly resolved to eliminate one by one all 
those men who were so offensive to her. Notwith- 
standing the apparent heartiness of her welcome, 
they soon began to feel in my house the little 
current of cold air which warns you that the door 
is open and that it is time to go. 

When my friends had gone she replaced them 
by her own. I found myself overrun by a parcel 
of imbeciles, unacquainted with art, tiresome to 
the last degree, who despised poetry because “ it 


4°4 


A rtists Wives . 


THE WIFE'S VERSION. 

thing that was proper , would appear with such a 
sour face , such an ill-humor ! When we were 
alone it was the same thing. And yet I was con- 
stantly showing him little attentions. I would say 
to him , “ Read me what you are doing ." And he 
would recite verses , whole passages. I could lit un- 
derstand them at all, but I always pretended to be 
deeply interested , and I would make some little com- 
ment at random here and there , which always had 
the effect of irritating him. In a whole year , work- 
ing day and night , he was only able , with all his 
rhymes , to make just one book , which did not sell at 
all. I said to him , “ There ! you see — ” by way of 
argument to turn him to something easier to under- 
stand, more productive. He flew into a terrible 
rage , and that was followed by a constant depression 
which made me very unhappy. My friends advised 
me as best they could. “ You see , my dear , it's 
ennui , the ill-humor of an idle man. If he would 
work a little more , he woidd n't be so dismal ." 

So I and all my friends began to look about to 
find a place for him. I moved heaven and earth; 
I made heaven knows how many visits to wives of 
general secretaries and department chiefs ; I even 
went as far as the minister's private office , — all 
without a word to him. I intended to give him a 
pleasant surprise. I said to myself \ “ We will see 
if he will be satisfied this time l' At last , on the 
day when I received his appointment , a great envel- 
ope with five seals , I went and left it on his table , 
wild with delight . It mea7it that our future was 


A Misunderstanding. 405 

THE HUSBAND’S VERSION, 
is n’t productive.” They purposely mentioned 
before me, in a loud tone, the names of fashion- 
able scribblers, manufacturers of plays and novels 
by the dozen : “ So-and-so earns a great deal of 
money ! ” 

To earn money ! that is the sole object in life 
with these monsters, and I had the chagrin of 
seeing that my wife agreed with them. In that 
unpropitious environment, all her provincial habits, 
her narrow, parsimonious views, had degenerated 
into incredible avarice. 

Fifteen thousand francs a year ! It seemed to 
me that with that income one might live without 
worrying about the morrow. But no. I was 
obliged to listen to constant complaints from her, 
talk of economy, of reforms, of advantageous in- 
vestments. As she enveloped me in these paltry 
details, I felt the taste and desire for work turn- 
ing their backs on me. Sometimes she would 
come to my table and disdainfully turn over the 
leaves of a poem I was just beginning. “What’s 
all this?” she would exclaim, reckoning the hours 
wasted on those insignificant little lines. Ah ! if 
I had chosen to listen to her, this glorious name 
of poet, which I have spent so many years in earn- 
ing, would be trailing in the black mud of pro- 
duction at wholesale. And when I think that at 
first I gave my whole heart and all my dreams 
into that woman’s keeping ; when I think that this 
contempt she now displays for me, because I do 
not earn money, dates from the first moments of 


406 


Artists' Wives. 


THE WIFE'S VERSION. 

assured , a comfortable home , the tranquillity born of 
honest toil and self-content. What do you suppose 
he said ? He said that he would never forgive me ! 
Whereupon he tore the minister's letter into a thou- 
sand pieces and fled \ slamming the doors behind 
him. Oh! these artists, poor deranged creatures 
who take life all awry ! What will become of me 
with such a man ? I would have talked with him , 
argued with him. But no. That person was right 
who told me, “ He ' s a madman ! ” Indeed, what is 
the use of speaking to him ? We do not use the 
same language. He would not understand me any 
more than I understand him. And so here we are , 
lookmg blankly at each other. I can read hatred in 
his eyes, and yet I am still fond of him. It is very 
painful. 


A Misunderstanding . 407 

THE HUSBAND’S VERSION, 
our married life ! Really I am ashamed for my- 
self and for her. 

I do not earn money ! That explains every- 
thing, the reproach in her glance, her admiration 
for productive nobodies, and the steps she took to 
procure for me some place or other in a govern- 
ment office. 

But I would have none of it. That is all I have 
left now, an inert will, proof against all assaults, all 
invasions. She can talk for hours, congeal me 
with her coldest smile, but my thoughts elude her, 
and always will elude her. And that is where we 
stand ! Married, doomed to live together as we are, 
long leagues separate us, and we are too weary, 
too discouraged, to try to move toward each other. 
And it is for life. Oh ! it is horrible ! 


408 


A rtists Wives. 


VI. 

ACTS OF VIOLENCE. 

Office of Maitre Petitbry, 
Consulting Advocate. 

To Madame Nina de B , 

at her aunt's at Moulins : 

Madame, — In accordance with the instructions of 
Madame your aunt, I have given my attention to the 
matter in question. I have taken up the facts one 
after another and subjected all your grievances to a 
most careful examination. Very good ; in my heart 
and conscience, I do not consider that the fruit is yet 
ripe enough, or, to speak more plainly, that you have as 
yet any serious basis for a petition for judicial separa- 
tion. Let us not forget that French law is a very 
positive person, who has neither delicacy nor an appre- 
ciation of nice shades of sentiment. She takes cogni- 
zance of nothing but the fact, the brutal, downright 
fact, and unluckily that fact is just what we have not. 
I certainly was deeply touched when I read your story 
of that first year of married life, which was so painful 
to you. You paid very dear for the glory of marrying a 
famous artist, one of those men in whom renown and 
flattery develop abnormal egotism, and who must either 
live alone or shatter the fragile and timid existence 
which tries to cling to theirs. Ah ! madame, since the 
beginning of my professional career, how many unhappy 
wives I have seen in the sad plight in which you now 


409 


Acts of Violence . 

are ! These artists who live by the public and for it 
exclusively, bring to the domestic fireside only the 
fatigue of their glory or the depression caused by their 
failures. A life devoid of order, without rudder or 
compass, subversive ideas at variance with all social 
conventions, contempt for the family and its joys, cere- 
bral excitement sought in the excessive use of tobacco, 
of strong liquors, to say nothing of the rest, — these are 
what constitute this dangerous artistic element from 
which your aunt is so desirous to remove you ; but I 
say again, while I appreciate her anxiety, yes, and her 
remorse for having given her consent to such a marriage, 
I do not see that affairs have reached the point at 
which you would be justified in the petition you 
contemplate. 

I have, however, already begun the draft of a memo- 
randum in which your principal grievances are grouped 
and set forth with some skill. These are the main 
divisions of the work : — 

i st. Monsieur's ungenileman/y treatment of Madame' s 
fa?nily. — His refusal to receive our aunt from Moulins, 
who brought us up and is very fond of us. — The 
sobriquets of Tata-Bobosse , Fee Carabosse, and the 
like, applied to that venerable spinster, whose back is 
slightly bent. — Mockery, epigrams, pen and pencil 
sketches of the said spinster and her infirmity. 

2d. Unsociableness . — Refusal to see Madame’s 
friends, to make wedding calls, to send cards, to 
answer invitations, etc. 

3d. Extravagance. — Money loaned without receipt 
to all sorts of bohemians. — Table always laid, house 
transformed into a caravansary. — Constant subscriptions 
for statues, gravestones, and productions of unfortunate 


4 1 ° A r lists' Wives . 

brethren. — Foundation of an artistic and literary re- 
view ! ! ! ! 

4th. Vulgar remarks about Madame . — Saying aloud, 
referring to us, “ What a turkey ! ” 

5th. Ill-usage and Violence. — Monsieur’s excessive 
brutality. — Flies into a rage on the slightest pretext. — 
Shatters crockery and furniture. — Uproar, scandal, un- 
seemly expressions. 

All this, dear madame, as you see, forms a very re- 
spectable, but insufficient indictment. We lack the 
actual violence. Ah ! if we only had an act of violence, 
one tiny little act of violence before witnesses, our case 
would be magnificent. But we cannot hope for an event 
of that kind, now that you have placed fifty leagues 
between yourself and your husband. I say " hope,” 
because, in the present situation of affairs, an exhibition 
of brutality on that man’s part would have been the most 
fortunate thing that could happen. 

Awaiting your commands, madame, I am your respect- 
ful and devoted servant, 

Petitbry. 

P. S. — Brutality before witnesses, understand ! 

To Maitre Petitbry , Paris : 

And so, monsieur, this is what we have come to \ 
This is what your laws have made of the old French 
chivalry ! And so, although a misunderstanding is often 
sufficient to separate two hearts forever, your courts 
must have acts of violence to justify such a separation ! 
Is it not a shameful, unjust, barbarous, crying outrage? 
To think that, in order to recover her liberty, my poor 
girl must go and hold out her neck to the executioner, 
must abandon herself to all the monster’s fury, ay, in- 


Acts of Violence . 41 1 

flame it ! But no matter, our minds are made up. You 
must have acts of violence. Very good ! you shall have 
them. To-morrow Nina returns to Paris. How will 
she be greeted? What will happen? I cannot think 
of it without a shudder. At the thought my hand trem- 
bles, my eyes fill with tears. Ah ! Monsieur. Ah ! 
Maitre Petitbry ! Ah ! 

Nina’s Unfortunate Aunt. 


Office of MaItre Marestang, 
Solicitor to the Tribunal of the Seine . 

Monsieur Henri de B , 

Man of Letters , Paris : 

Be calm, be calm, be calm ! I forbid you to go to 
Moulins, to rush off in pursuit of your fugitive. It is the 
wisest and surest plan to wait by your own chimney- 
corner. After all, what was it that happened? You 
refused to receive that absurd, evil-tongued old maid; 
your wife went off to join her. You must wait. Family 
ties are very strong in the heart of a young woman so 
newly married. You attempted to go too fast. Remem- 
ber that this aunt brought her up, that she has no other 
relations. She has her husband, you will say. Ah ! my 
dear boy, between ourselves we can afford to admit that 
husbands are not amiable every day. I know one in 
particular who, notwithstanding his kind heart, is so 
nervous and high-strung ! I agree that hard work and 
artistic preoccupation are partly responsible for it. 
Nevertheless the bird has taken fright and flown back to 
its old cage. Have no fear ; it will not remain there 
long. Either I am sadly mistaken or that Parisian of 
yesterday will very soon grow weary of her superannuated 


412 


Artists' Wives, 


surroundings and will not be long without regretting her 
poet’s outbursts. Above all things, do not budge. 

Your old friend, 

Marestang. 

To Maitre Marestang, 

Solicitor, Paris : 

At the same time that your sensible and friendly letter 
reached me, I received a telegram from Moulins an- 
nouncing Nina’s return. Ah ! what an excellent prophet 
you were ! She arrives this evening, entirely alone, as 
she went away, without the slightest move on my part. 
What I must do now is to make her life so peaceful and 
pleasant that she will have no further temptation to go 
away. I have laid in a vast stock of affection and 
patience during this week’s separation. There is only 
one point on which I am unchangeable. I do not pro- 
pose to have that horrible Tata-Bobosse in my house 
again, that blue-stocking of 1820, who gave her niece to 
me solely because she hoped that my petty celebrity 
would give hers a boost. Consider, my dear Marestang, 
that ever since my marriage that wretched little old 
woman has constantly come between my wife and my- 
self, protruding her hunchback into all our pleasures, all 
our parties, at the theatre, at the exhibitions, in society, 
in the country, everywhere. That being so, are you sur- 
prised that I was somewhat precipitate about turning 
her out, sending her back to her good town of Moulins? 
I tell you, my dear fellow, you have no idea of the mis- 
chief these old maids, naturally suspicious and ignorant 
of life, are capable of making in a young family. She 
had stuffed my wife’s pretty little head with false, old- 
fashioned, ridiculous ideas, a rococo sentimentalism of 
the days of Ipsibo£ and young Florange : Ah, if my lady 


Acts of Violence . 413 

should see me / — To her mind I was simply a poate, the 
kind of poate you see in Renduel’s or Ladvocat’s frontis- 
pieces, crowned with laurel, with a lyre on his hip, and 
the breeze from the lofty mountain-tops swelling his 
short cloak with its velvet collar. That is the sort of 
husband she had promised her niece, and you can imag- 
ine my poor Nina’s disappointment. However, I agree 
that I was very maladroit in dealing with the poor child. 
As you say, I tried to go too fast, I frightened her. Her 
education was so narrow, she had imbibed such false 
ideas from the convent and from her aunt’s sentimental 
maunderings, that it was my duty to begin very gently 
to educate her anew, giving the provincial perfume time 
to evaporate. However, it is all reparable, since she is 
coming back. She is coming back, my dear friend ! 
To-night I shall go and meet her at the station, and we 
shall return home arm-in-arm, reconciled and happy. 

Henri de B . 

Nina de B to her Aunt at Moulins. 

He was waiting for me at the station, and received 
me smiling, with outstretched arms, as if I were return- 
ing from an ordinary journey. As you can imagine, I 
assumed my most frigid expression. As soon as we 
reached home I shut myself up in my room , where I 
dined alone on the pretext of fatigue. Then I gave 
the key a double turn. He came and bade me good- 
night through the key-hole, and to my great surprise 
walked away on tiptoe without losing his temper or in- 
sisting on being admitted. This morning I called on 
Maitre Petitbry, who instructed me at great length as to 
the course of conduct I should adopt, — the time, the 
place, the witnesses. Ah ! my dear aunt, if you knew 


4H 


A r lists' Wives . 


how my fear increases as the moment draws nearer ! 
His fits of anger are so terrible. Even when he is mild 
and pleasant as he was last night, his eyes flash as if a 
storm were brewing. However, I shall be strong when 
I think of you, darling. Besides, as Maitre Petitbry 
says, there is only one unpleasant moment to live 
through; then we will resume our former calm and 
happy life together. Nina de B . 

The Same to the Same. 

I am writing in bed, dear aunt, prostrated by the ex- 
citement of that terrible scene. Who would have 
dreamed that things would turn out thus ? And yet all 
my precautions were taken. I had notified Marthe and 
her sister, who were to come at one o’clock, and I had 
selected for the great scene the moment of leaving the 
table, while the servants were removing the dishes in 
the dining-room, which adjoins the study. My batteries 
were all prepared in the morning ; an hour of scales 
and exercises on the piano, the Cloches du Rfonastere, 
the Reveries de Roselle?i , all the pieces he detests. That 
did not prevent his working constantly, without the 
slightest sign of irritation. At breakfast, the same un- 
ruffled patience. An execrable breakfast it was, too, — 
odds and ends, and sweet dishes which he cannot en- 
dure. And if you could have seen my costume ! A 
gown five years old, a little black-silk apron, hair out of 
curl ! I looked for signs of irritation on his forehead, 
for that straight furrow I know so well, which Monsieur 
digs between his eyebrows when he is vexed in the 
slightest degree. But no, nothing of the sort. It was 
enough to make me believe that my husband had been 
changed. He said to me in a calm, slightly sad tone : 


Acts of Violence . 415 

“ Ah ! you have gone back to your old way of wear- 
ing your hair?” 

I hardly answered, preferring not to hasten matters 
before the witnesses arrived ; and then, it ’s a curious 
thing ! — I felt deeply moved, excited in anticipa- 
tion of the scene I was trying to bring about. At last, 
after a few decidedly sharp replies on my part, he left 
the table and went to his study. I followed him, all in 
a tremble. I could hear my friends seating themselves 
in the small salon, and Pierre going in and out of the 
dining-room, arranging the silver and the glasses. The 
moment had come. I must incite him to acts of 
violence, and that seemed to me a simple matter after 
all that I had done since the morning to irritate him. 

I must have been deathly pale when I entered his 
study ! I felt that I was in the lion’s cage. “ Suppose 
he should kill me!” I thought. Pie did n’t look very 
terrible, however, lying on his divan with a cigar in his 
mouth. 

“Do I disturb you?” I asked in my most ironical 
voice. 

“ No,” he answered tranquilly. “ As you see, I am 
not working.” 

I, still very nasty : — 

“Ah ! do you never work, pray? ” 

He, still very amiable : — 

“ You are mistaken, my dear. On the contrary, I 
work a great deal. But ours is one of the trades at 
which a man can work when he has no tools in his 
hand.” 

“And what are you doing at this moment? Oh ! yes, 
I know, your play in verse — always the same thing for 
two years past. Do you know what a lucky thing it is 


Artists' Wives. 


416 

that your wife has a little money ? That enables you to 
be as lazy as you please.” 

I thought that he would jump at me then. Not at all. 
He came and took my hands very kindly. 

“Well, well, is it still the same old story? Are we 
going to begin anew our life of constant warfare? In 
that case why did you come back?” 

I confess that I was a little touched by his sad and 
affectionate tone ; but I thought of you, my poor aunt, 
of your exile, of all he has done, and that gave me 
courage. I tried to think what would be the bitterest, 
the most wounding thing I could say to him. I don’t 
know what I said — that I was in despair at having 
married an artist ; that at Moulins everybody pitied me ; 
that I had found my girl friends married to magistrates, 
serious-minded, influential men, of assured position, 
while he — if he only earned money ! But no, Monsieur 
worked for renown. And such renown ! No one at 
Moulins. knew of him, and at Paris his plays were hissed. 
His books did not sell. And patati , and patata . My 
brain whirled with all the spiteful words that rushed into 
it as I went on. He gazed at me without answering, 
with cold anger. Naturally nis coldness exasperated me 
still more. I was so excited that I could not recognize 
my voice, which was pitched extraordinarily high, and 
the last words I shrieked at him — some unjust, foolish 
epigram or other — buzzed in my bewildered ears. For 
the moment I thought that Maitre Petitbry would have 
his act of violence. Pale as death, with clenched teeth, 
Henri had taken two steps toward me. 

“ Madame ! ” 

Then his wrath suddenly vanished, his face became 
impassive once more, and he looked at me with such a 


Acts of Violence . 417 

calm, scornful, insolent expression ! Ah ! on my word, 
my patience was exhausted ; I raised my hand and vla,7i ! 
I gave him the prettiest slap that I ever gave in my life. 
At the sound the door opened and my witnesses ap- 
peared, horrified and solemn. 

" Monsieur, this is an outrage ! ” 

“Isn’t it?” said the poor fellow, pointing to his 
red cheek. 

You can imagine whether I was confused. Luckily I 
had adopted the plan of fainting and of shedding all the 
tears I had, which relieved me very much. Henri is in 
my room now. He is taking care of me, nursing me, 
and he is really very, very kind to me. What am I to 
do ? What a hopeless tangle ! Maitre Petitbry will not 
be pleased. 

Nina de B . 


27 


418 


A rtists Wives . 


VII. 

BOHEMIA EN FAMILLE. 

I DO not think that a more eccentric and more 
cheerful interior can be found in all Paris than 
Simaise the sculptor’s. Life in that house is a per- 
petual holiday. At whatever hour you arrive you 
hear laughter and singing, and the music of a 
piano, a guitar, or a tom-tom. If you enter the 
studio, it rarely happens that you do not find 
yourself in the midst of a game of battledore, a 
waltz, or a figure in a quadrille, or else amid 
preparations for a ball, clippings of tulle, ribbons 
lying beside modelling tools, artificial flowers hang- 
ing on busts, and spangled skirts spread out on 
groups of which the clay is still moist. 

There are four tall girls there, you see, from 
sixteen to twenty-five years of age, very pretty, but 
all-pervading ; and when these young ladies whirl 
about with their hair down their backs, a mass of 
flying ribbons, long pins, and light curls, you would 
say that, instead of four, there were, eight, sixteen, 
thirty-two Mesdemoiselles Simaise, each as frolic- 
some as the others, talking loud, laughing heartily, 
one and all with the slightly boyish manner pecu- 
liar to artists’ daughters, with studio gestures and 
the self-possession of an art-student; and incom- 


Bohemia en Famille . 419 

parably skilful in turning away a creditor or dusting 
the jacket of a tradesman insolent enough to 
present his bill at an inopportune moment. 

These young women are the real mistresses of the 
house. The father works from daybreak, model- 
ling and chiselling without respite, for he has no 
means. In the beginning he was ambitious, 
struggled hard to do well. Several successful 
works at the Exposition seemed to promise a cer- 
tain measure of renown. But this expensive family 
to feed and dress and start in life prevented him from 
rising above mediocrity in his profession. As for 
Madame Simaise, she is of no account at all. Being 
very beautiful at the time of her marriage, and very 
popular in the artistic circle to which her husband 
introduced her, she condemned herself to be, at 
first, simply a pretty woman, and later, simply a 
woman who was once pretty. Being of Creole 
origin as she claims — although I am assured that 
her parents never left Courbevoie — she passes her 
days from morning till night in a hammock slung 
in every room in turn, fans herself and takes siestas, 
with a profound contempt for the material details 
of life. She has posed so often for her husband 
for Hebes and Dianas that she thinks of herself as 
passing through life with a crescent on her brow, a 
cup in her hand, laden with emblems, and as having 
no other work to do. And you should see what 
confusion there is in the house. It takes an hour 
to find anything. 

“Have you my thimble? — Marthe, fi/va, Gene- 
vieve, Madeleine, who has seen my thimble?” 


420 


A rtists Wives . 


The drawers, in which books, powder, rouge, 
spangles, spoons, and fans are thrown pell-mell are 
filled to the brim, but contain nothing of any use ; 
moreover, they belong to odd, curious, incomplete, 
battered pieces of furniture. And the house itself 
is so singular ! As they often move, they have no 
time to get settled, and that light-hearted establish- 
ment always seems to be awaiting the complete, 
indispensable setting to rights which follows a ball. 
But so many things are lacking that it is not worth 
while to try to set the place to rights, and if only 
they have a little something to wear, if they can 
flit through the streets with the brilliancy of a 
meteor, a suggestion of chic, and an appearance of 
splendor, honor is safe. This tribe of nomads is 
in no wise embarrassed by camp-life. Through 
the open doors poverty suddenly displays itself 
in the four bare walls of an unfurnished room, in 
the confusion of an over-crowded chamber. It 
is bohemianism en f ami lie, a life of unexpected 
episodes, of surprises. 

Just as they are sitting down at table they dis- 
cover that there is nothing to eat, and that some one 
must go out in a hurry and get breakfast. In this 
way the hours pass swiftly, being full of excitement 
if not of work ; and then there is this advantage in 
their life : when they breakfast late they do not 
dine, making up for it by supping at the ball, where 
they go almost every evening. These ladies often 
give evening parties too. Tea is served in out- 
landish receptacles, mugs, tumblers, and Japanese 
shells, all cracked and chipped by frequent mov- 


Bohemia en Famille . 421 

ings. The serenity of the mother and daughters 
amid this destitution is something admirable. 
Faith! they have many other things than house- 
keeping in their heads. The hair of one is brushed 
smooth like a Swiss peasant's, another is curled 
like an English baby, and Madame Simaise in her 
hammock lives in the blissful memories of her 
former beauty. As for Pere Simaise, he is always 
happy. So long as he hears his daughters’ rippling 
laughter about him, he bears with a light heart all 
the burden of that disordered existence. To him 
they apply cajolingly: “ Papa, I need a hat; papa, 
I must have a dress.” Sometimes there is a hard 
winter. They go out so much, they receive so 
many invitations. Bah ! the father manages by 
rising two hours earlier. They have but one fire 
in the house, in the studio, where the whole family 
assembles. The young ladies cut and make their 
dresses themselves, while the hammock rope creaks 
regularly and the father works away, squatting on 
his stool. 

Have you ever met these ladies in society? As 
soon as they appear there is a murmur and stir. 
The two oldest have been known for a long while ; 
but they are always so becomingly dressed, so 
spruce, that there is great rivalry for the honor of 
dancing with them. They are quite as popular as 
their younger sisters, almost as much as their 
mother in the older days ; and they have such a 
graceful way of wearing fashionable gowns and 
jewels, such a charming spontaneity of manner, 
with the wild laughter of ill-bred children and a 


422 


A r lists' Wives . 


trick of fanning themselves in the Spanish fashion. 
In spite of everything, they do not marry. No 
admirer has ever been able to resist the spectacle 
of that extraordinary home. The havoc wrought 
by useless extravagance, the lack of plates, the 
profusion of old torn tapestries, of disjointed and 
discolored antique chandeliers, the current of air 
from the doors, the constant ringing of creditors, 
the untidiness of the young ladies in peignoir and 
slippers, dawdling about in furnished lodgings, 
put the best-intentioned lovers to flight. What 
can you expect? Not every man can resign him- 
self to the idea of hanging an indolent woman’s 
hammock by his side for life. 

I am very much afraid that Mesdemoiselles 
Simaise will never marry. They had, however, a 
unique and magnificent opportunity during the 
Commune. The family had taken refuge in Nor- 
mandie, in a small but very litigious town, full of 
solicitors, notaries, and land-agents. The father 
looked about for work as soon as he arrived. His 
renown as a sculptor was of service to him ; and 
as there was a statue of Cajas by him in a public 
square in the town, the notabilities vied with one 
another in ordering their busts. The mother slung 
her hammock forthwith in a corner of the studio, 
and the young ladies organized small parties. 
They made a great hit at once. There, you see, 
poverty seemed an incident of exile, the unsettled 
air of the establishment had its justification. The 
fashionable damsels made merry over their poverty. 
They had left Paris empty-handed. Paris being 


Bohemia en F ami lie. 


423 

closed to the outside world, nothing could reach 
them. It rather added to their charms. It made 
one think of the travelling gypsies who comb their 
lovely hair in a barn and quench their thirst at a 
brook. The least poetic mentally compared them 
to the exiles at Coblentz, to the ladies of Marie- 
Antoinette’s court, who left in hot haste, without 
powder or hoops or maids, and were forced to 
resort to all sorts of expedients, to learn to wait 
upon themselves, and who retained nevertheless 
the frivolous manners of the court of France, the 
black patches, now discarded, giving piquancy to 
the smile. 

Every evening the Simaise study was overrun 
by a parcel of dazzled limbs of the law. There 
was a hired piano, and they all polkaed and 
waltzed and schottisched — the schottische is still 
danced in Normandie. “ I shall surely marry off 
one of them at last,” said Pere Simaise to himself; 
and, in all likelihood, when one had gone the 
others would have followed. Unfortunately the 
first one did not go, but she came very, very near 
it. Among the young ladies’ numerous partners 
in that corps de ballet of solicitors, deputy-attorneys, 
and notaries, the most enthusiastic dancer was a 
solicitor, a widower, who was very attentive to the 
oldest daughter. He was known in the house 
as “ the first dancing solicitor,” in memory of 
Moliere’s ballets; and P&re Simaise, seeing how 
frantically the old dandy capered about, un- 
doubtedly based his fondest hopes upon him. 
But men of affairs do not dance like other men. 


424 


A rtists Wives. 


And this one, as he waltzed, reflected thus : “ This 
Simaise family is charming — tra la la — la la la 
— but they need not try to hurry me — la la la — 
la la l£re — I ’ll make no bargain till the gates of 
Paris are reopened — tra la la — and I have had a 
chance to find out a thing or two — la la la.” 
Thus did the first dancing solicitor reflect; and as 
soon as the siege of Paris was raised he made 
inquiries about the family and the marriage fell 
through. 

Since then the poor little girls have missed 
many others. But the cheerfulness of that strange 
household is in no wise disturbed thereby. On 
the contrary, the longer they live the merrier they 
are. Last winter they moved three times and were 
sold out once, and yet they gave two large fancy- 
dress balls. 


Fragment of a Woman s Letter . 425 


VIII. 

FRAGMENT OF A WOMAN’S LETTER, FOUND 
ON RUE NOTRE-DAME-DES-CHAMPS. 

. . . much it has cost me to have married an 
artist ! Ah ! my dear, if I had known ! — but young 
girls have such queer ideas on all subjects. Just 
fancy that at the Salon, when I saw on the cata- 
logue the addresses of the artists on those far-away, 
peaceful streets, at the extreme end of Paris, I 
imagined them leading tranquil, sedentary lives, 
wrapped up in their work and their families ; and I 
said to myself, realizing beforehand how jealous I 
should be : “ That is the sort of husband I want. 
He will always be with me. We will pass all our 
days together, he at his picture or his sculpture, I 
reading or sewing at his side in the subdued light 
of the studio.” Poor innocent fool ! I had no 
suspicion then of what a studio was, nor of the 
strange kind of people one meets there. Never, 
when I was looking at those statues of goddesses 
so brazenly cUcolleti, did it occur to me that there 
could be women so shameless as to — and that I 
myself — Otherwise I beg you to believe that 
I would not have married a sculptor. Ah ! no in- 
deed, I should think not ! I ought to say that at 


Artists' Wives . 


426 

home they were all opposed to my marriage, in 
spite of my husband’s wealth, his already famous 
name, and the beautiful house he built for me. 
But I was determined upon it. He was so refined, 
so charming, so attentive ! It seemed to me, how- 
ever, that he had a little too much to say about 
my dress, my way of arranging my hair. “ Pray 
brush your hair back like this — so,” and monsieur 
would amuse himself by placing a flower amid my 
curls with more art than the best of our modistes. 
So much experience in such things in a man 
was terrifying, wasn’t it? I ought to have dis- 
trusted him. However, you shall hear. Listen. 

We had returned from our wedding journey. 
While I was getting settled in my pretty, beauti- 
fully furnished little apartment — the paradise 
which you know so well — my husband, immediately 
upon our arrival, began to work, and passed his 
days in his studio, away from the house. When 
he came home at night he would talk to me 
feverishly about his statue in the approaching 
Salon. The subject was “ A Roman Lady leaving 
the Bath.” He was striving to reproduce in the 
marble the little shiver at the touch of the air, the 
moisture of the fine stuff clinging to her shoulders, 
and all sorts of other beautiful things that I don’t 
now remember. Between ourselves, when he is 
talking sculpture to me I do not always understand 
very clearly. All the same, I said confidently, 
“ That will be very pretty ; ” and I already im- 
agined myself on the fine gravel of the paths, 
admiring my husband’s work, a lovely bit of white 


Fragment of a Womans Letter. 427 

marble standing out against the green hanging, 
while people behind me whispered, “ The sculptor’s 
wife.” 

At last, being curious to see how we were getting 
along with our Roman lady, it occurred to me one 
day to go and surprise him at his studio, which I 
had not then seen. It was one of my first experi- 
ments in going out alone, and I made myself 
beautiful, I tell you ! When I arrived I found the 
door opening into the little garden, on the ground- 
floor, wide open. So I went right in, and you can 
imagine my indignation when I saw my husband, 
in a white blouse, like a mason, with hair awry and 
hands all smeared with dirt, and facing him, my dear, 
a woman, a tall creature, standing on a three-legged 
stool, hardly clothed at all, and as unconcerned in 
that guise as if she found it perfectly natural. The 
whole of her wretched outfit, covered with mud, 
walking boots, a round hat with a feather all out 
of curl, were tossed on a chair by her side. I saw 
it all in a flash, for you can guess whether I ran 
away. Etienne tried to speak to me, to detain me, 
but I made a gesture of horror at sight of his clayey 
hands, and I hurried away to mamma’s house, 
where I arrived more dead than alive. You can 
picture the scene when I appeared. 

“ Ah ! mon Dieu ! my child, what is the matter? ” 

I told mamma what I had seen, how that hor- 
rible woman was dressed, in what costume. And I 
cried and cried. Mamma was deeply moved and 
tried to comfort me; she explained that it must 
have been a model. 


A r lists' Wives. 


428 

“What? why, it’s abominable! He said nothing 
to me about such things before we were married.” 

Thereupon Etienne arrived in dire dismay, and 
tried in his turn to make me understand that a model 
is not a woman like other women, and that sculptors 
cannot do without them ; but these reasons did 
not convince me, and I declared formally that I 
would have none of a husband who passed his 
days tete-a-tete with young women in that garb. 

“ Let us see, my dear,” said poor mamma, strug- 
gling hard to adjust everything, “ could n’t you, out 
of regard for your wife, replace this woman by a 
make-believe, a pasteboard figure?” 

My husband gnawed his moustache with rage. 

“ Why, it ’s impossible, my dear mamma.” 

“ Still, it does seem to me, my dear fellow — you 
know, our milliners have pasteboard heads that 
they use to show bonnets on. Now, if they do it 
for the head, could n’t you do it for — ” 

It seemed that it was not possible. At all events 
that is what Etienne tried at great length to prove 
to us, with all sorts of details and technical words. 
He really seemed very unhappy. I watched him 
out of the corner of my eye as I wiped away my 
tears, and I saw that my suffering distressed him 
terribly. At last, after an interminable discussion, 
it was agreed that, since the model was indispensa- 
ble, I should be present whenever she came. 
There was a very convenient little closet adjoining 
the studio, where I could see without being seen. 
It is a shameful thing, you will say, to be jealous 
of such creatures and to show one’s jealousy. But 


Fragment of a Woman's Letter . 429 

you see, my love, one must have passed through 
such emotions to be able to talk about them. 

The model was to come the next day. So I 
took my courage in both hands and installed my- 
self in my little box, with the express understand- 
ing that, at the faintest tap on the partition, my 
husband was to come to me at once. I was hardly 
in my seat when the wretched model of the day 
before arrived, trussed up God knows how, and 
with such a poverty-stricken aspect that I asked 
myself how I could have been jealous of a woman 
who goes about the streets without white cuffs and 
with an old shawl with green fringe. Well, my 
dear, when I saw that creature drop her shawl and 
her dress in the middle of the studio, disrobe her- 
self in such a free-and-easy, immodest way, it pro- 
duced an effect on me which I cannot describe. 
Indignation choked me. I knocked hastily on the 
partition. Etienne came. I was pale and trem- 
bling. He laughed at me, reassured me very gently, 
and went back to his work. Now the woman was 
standing, half-naked, her long hair unbound and 
falling down her back in a heavy, gleaming mass. 
She was no longer the vile creature of a moment 
before, but almost a statue already, despite her 
worn and vulgar mien. I had a tight feeling at my 
heart. However, I said nothing. Suddenly I 
heard my husband exclaim : “ The left leg. Put 
out the left leg.” And, as the model did not 
understand, he walked up to her, and — Ah! I 
could n’t stand that. I knocked. He did n’t hear 
me. I knocked again, frantically. That time he 


430 Artists' Wives . 

ran to me, frowning slightly in the excitement of 
his work. 

“ Come, come, Armande — do be reasonable ! ” 
And I, weeping bitterly, laid my head on his 
shoulder : “ It 's too much for me, my dear. I 
can’t — I cannot — ” 

Thereupon, without answering, he turned ab- 
ruptly, went back to the studio and made a sign 
to that fright of a woman, who dressed and went 
away. 

For several days Ftienne did not go to his 
studio. He stayed at home with me, never went 
out, refused to see his friends; he was perfectly 
pleasant all the time, but his manner was so de- 
jected. Once I asked him very timidly, “ Are n’t 
you going to work any more?” which called forth 
this reply, “A man can’t work without a model.” 
I had not the courage to insist, for I realized how 
guilty I was, and that he had the right to bear me 
a grudge. However, by dint of caresses and 
endearments, I induced him to promise to return 
to his studio and try to finish his statue by — 
what do they call it? — by chic , that is to say, by 
imagination ; mamma’s way, in fact. I thought it 
a very easy matter, but the poor fellow had a hard 
time of it. Every night he came home worn out 
and discouraged, almost ill. I went often to see 
him, to cheer him up. I always said, “ It is 
charming.” But as a matter of fact the statue 
made little progress. I am not even sure that he 
worked on it. When I arrived I always found 
him smoking on his couch, or else rolling little 


Fragment of a Womans Letter . 431 

pellets of clay, which he threw savagely against 
the wall. 

One afternoon when I was there looking at the 
poor Roman lady, half-modelled, who was so long 
about leaving her bath, a wild idea passed through 
my mind. The Roman was about my height; 
perhaps on a pinch I might — 

“What do you call a pretty leg?” I suddenly 
asked my husband. 

He explained the point at great length, pointing 
out what his statue still lacked, and what he could not 
succeed in giving it without a model. Poor boy ! 
he said it with such a heart-broken air. What 
do you suppose I did? Faith, for better or worse, 
I simply picked up the drapery that lay in a corner 
and stepped into my box ; then, without a word, 
while he was still gazing at his statue, I softly took 
my place on the platform in front of him, in the 
costume and attitude in which I had seen that 
horrid model. Ah ! my love, such emotion as 
he showed when he raised his head ! I longed to 
laugh and to cry. I was as red as fire. And that 
infernal muslin must be redraped everywhere. 
Never mind ! fitienne seemed so overjoyed that 
I was soon reassured. Just fancy, my dear; to 
hear him talk — 


43 2 


A r lists Wives . 


IX. 

A GREAT MAN’S WIDOW. 

WHEN it was reported that she was to marry 
again, no one was surprised. Despite all his 
genius, perhaps even because of his genius, the 
great man had for fifteen years led her a very 
hard life, interspersed with caprices, with sensa- 
tional crotchets, which sometimes attracted the 
attention of Paris. On the high-road to renown, 
over which he had passed in triumph and at great 
speed, like those who are destined to die young, 
she had followed him, humble and shrinking, 
crouching in a corner of the chariot, and always 
on the lookout for accidents. When she com- 
plained, relations, friends, everybody was against 
her. “ Respect his foibles,” they would say, 
“ they are the foibles of a god. Do not vex him, 
do not disturb him. Remember that your hus- 
band is not yours only. He belongs to the coun- 
try, to art, much more than to the family. And 
who can say that every one of these faults of which 
you complain is not the source of some sublime 
work?” At last, however, * exhausted by her en- 
forced patience, she had fits of rebellion, of indig- 
nation, so that, when the great man died, they were 
on the point of appearing in court on a petition for 


A Great Man's Widow . 


433 


a judicial separation, and of dragging their noble 
and illustrious name through the mire on the third 
page of the scandal-mongering newspapers. 

After the agitation of that ill-starred union, the 
anxiety of the last illness, and the sudden shock 
of her husband’s death, which had rekindled for 
a moment her former affection, the first three 
months of her widowhood had upon the young 
woman the salutary, restful effect of a season at 
the baths. The forced retirement, the tranquil 
charm of assuaged grief gave her at twenty-five 
a second youth almost as fascinating as the first. 
Moreover, black was very becoming to her; and 
she assumed the serious, somewhat haughty de- 
meanor of a woman left alone in life with all the 
honor of a great name to bear. Jealous beyond 
measure of the dead man’s renown, that accursed 
renown which had cost her so many tears and 
which was growing greater from day to day like 
a gorgeous flower nourished by the black soil of 
the grave, she appeared, enveloped in her long, 
gloomy weeds, at the offices of theatrical mana- 
gers and publishers, negotiating for the reproduc- 
tion of her husband’s operas, superintending the 
publication of his posthumous works and unfin- 
ished manuscripts, and bringing to all these details 
a sort of solemn solicitude and as it were the re- 
spect inspired by a place of sanctuary. 

It was at this period that her second husband 
met her. He too was a musician, almost unknown, 
the author of divers waltzes and ballads and of 
two operettas, which were neither sold nor acted 
28 


434 


Artists' Wives. 


to any appreciable extent, although they had been 
printed in most attractive style. With a pleasant 
face and a handsome fortune, which he inherited 
from an extremely bourgeois family, his most 
prominent characteristics were, an exalted respect 
for glory, curiosity concerning celebrated men, 
and the enthusiastic innocence of artists who are 
still young. And so, when the master’s wife was 
pointed out to him, his head swam. It was as if 
the image of the glorious muse had appeared to 
him. He fell in love at once, and as the widow 
was beginning to go into society to some extent, 
he obtained an introduction to her house. There 
his passion fed upon the atmosphere of genius 
which still hovered in all the corners of the salon. 
There was the bust of the master, the piano at 
which he composed, his scores, scattered about 
over all the furniture, melodious even to the 
sight, as if the written phrases came forth in 
music from their open sheets. The undeniable 
fascination of the widow, planted amid the memo- 
ries of that austere past as in a becoming frame, 
put the finishing touch to his passion. 

After hesitating a long while the excellent youth 
ended by declaring his love, but in the most 
humble, timid terms. He knew of how little con- 
sequence he was in her eyes ; he understood how 
she must regret exchanging her illustrious name 
for his, — an unknown, plebeian name, — and innu- 
merable other ingenuous deliverances of this sort. 
In the bottom of her heart the lady was much 
flattered by her conquest, but she played the 


A Great Man s Widow . 


435 

comedy of the broken heart, and assumed the 
scornful, surfeited airs of the woman whose life is 
ended, with no hope of beginning anew. She, who 
had never been so tranquil as since her great 
man’s death, still found tears with which to regret 
his loss, and was able to speak of him with enthu- 
siastic warmth. All this, of course, simply in- 
flamed her youthful adorer, and made him more 
eloquent, more persuasive. 

To make a long story short, this stern widow- 
hood ended with a marriage ; but the widow did 
not abdicate, and, although married, was more than 
ever the great man’s widow, fully realizing that 
therein lay her real prestige in her second hus- 
band’s eyes. As she felt less youthful than he, 
she prevented him from noticing it by overwhelm- 
ing him with disdain, with a sort of vague compas- 
sion, of unexpressed but stinging regret because 
of her mesalliance. But he was not wounded ; far 
from it, — he was so persuaded of his inferiority, 
and thought it so natural that the memory of such 
a man should be despotically enthroned in her 
heart ! To maintain him in that attitude of humil- 
ity, she sometimes read over with him the letters 
the master wrote her when he was paying court 
to her. This return to the past made her fifteen 
years younger, gave her the self-assurance of a 
beautiful, beloved woman, viewed through all the 
amorous dithyrambs, the delicious exaggeration of 
written passion. If she had changed since, her 
young husband was little disturbed by the change, 
adored her on the strength of another’s word, 


A r lists' Wives. 


436 

and derived a strange, indefinable sort of vanity 
therefrom. It seemed to him that those impas- 
sioned entreaties added to the force of his own, 
and that he was the inheritor of a whole past 
of love. 

Strange couple ! They were an interesting 
spectacle in society. I saw them occasionally at 
the theatre. No one would have recognized the 
shrinking, timid young woman who used to ac- 
company the maestro, lost in the gigantic shadow 
which he cast all about him. Now she sat erect 
at the front of the box and attracted all eyes by 
the proud gleam in her own. One would have 
said that she wore about her head her first hus- 
band’s halo, while his name echoed all about her 
by way of homage or of reproof. The other, 
seated a little farther back, with the intense ex- 
pression of the sacrificed ones of life, watched her 
every movement, awaiting an opportunity to wait 
upon her. 

In their home this curious relation was even 
more marked. I remember an evening party that 
they gave a year after they were married. The 
husband circulated among his guests, proud, yet a 
little embarrassed, to have so many people in his 
house. The wife, disdainful, melancholy, superior, 
was on that occasion the great man’s widow to the 
last degree. She had a certain way of glancing at 
her husband over her shoulder, of calling him 
“my poor dear” as she overwhelmed him with un- 
grateful duties, as if to say, “You are good for 
nothing but that.” About her clustered the circle 


A Great Maris Widow . 


437 


of intimate friends of the earlier time, of those who 
had been present at the master’s brilliant begin- 
nings, his struggles, his triumphs. With them she 
simpered, played the young girl. They had known 
her when she was so young ! Almost all of them 
called her by her Christian name, “ Ana'fs.” It 
was like a gathering of artists, which the poor 
husband approached respectfully to hear his pred- 
ecessor discussed. They recalled the glorious 
first nights , those nights of battle, almost always 
won; and the great man’s manias, for instance, his 
insisting that his wife should be beside him, in full 
dress, dtcollctie, when he was at work, in order to 
bring inspiration. “Do you remember, Ana'fs?” 
and Ana'fs sighed and blushed. 

His beautiful love plays dated from that period, 
Savonarole particularly, the most passionate of all, 
with its great duo interspersed with moonbeams, 
the perfume of roses, and the song of the nightin- 
gale. An enthusiast played it on the piano, amid 
contemplative emotion. At the last note of that 
admirable passage, the lady burst into tears. 
“ That is too much for me,” she said. “ I have 
never been able to listen to it without weeping.” 
The master’s old friends, encompassing his un- 
happy widow with their sympathetic condolence, 
came forward in turn as at funeral ceremonies, to 
give her a tremulous clasp of the hand. 

“Come, come, Ana'fs, be brave.” 

And the most amusing thing was to see the 
second husband, standing beside his wife, with a 
deeply moved, pathetic air, distributing hand- 


438 


Artists Wives. 


clasps, and appropriating his share of the ex- 
pressions of condolence. 

“ What a genius ! what a genius ! ” he said, 
mopping his eyes. It was at once comical and 
touching. 


The Liar . 


439 


X. 

THE LIAR. 

" I HAVE never loved but one woman in my life/' 

said D the painter to us one day. “ I passed 

with her five years of perfect happiness, of tranquil 
and fruitful joys. I may say that I owe to her my 
present celebrity; work was so easy to me, inspira- 
tion so natural at her side. The moment I first 
met her it seemed to me as if she had always been 
mine. Her beauty and her character fulfilled all 
my dreams. That woman never left me ; she died 
in my house, in my arms, loving me to the end. 
But when I think of her it is with anger. If I try 
to represent her as I saw her for five years, in all 
the radiance of her love, with her tall, lithe figure, 
her golden pallor, the features of an Oriental 
Jewess, regular and delicate in the slightly puffy 
face, her slow speech, as smooth and velvety as 
her glance, — if I seek to give body to that 
delicious vision, it is only that I may say to her 
with the more force, ‘ I hate you ! * 

“ Her name was Clotilde. In the friend’s house 
where we met, she was known by the name of 
Madame Deloche, and she was said to be the 
widow of a sea-captain who made long voyages. 
She had, in fact, the appearance of having travelled 


440 


A rtists Wives . 


extensively. In conversation, she would suddenly 
say, ‘When I was at Tampico;’ or, ‘One time in 
the harbor at Valparaiso.’ Aside from that there 
was nothing in her manners or her language that 
smacked of a wandering life, nothing that indicated 
that she was accustomed to the confusion and 
hurry of sudden arrivals and speedy departures. 
She was a Parisian, she dressed with perfect 
taste, with none of the burnous or the eccentric- 
looking sarapfc , which advertise the wives of naval 
officers and seamen, always in their travelling 
costume. 

“ When I realized that I loved her, my first, my 
only thought was to ask her to marry me. Some- 
one spoke to her in my behalf. She answered 
simply that she should never marry again. After 
that I avoided meeting her ; and as I was too hard 
hit, too preoccupied, to do any work at all, I de- 
termined to travel. I was making my preparations 
for departure, when, one morning, to my un- 
bounded amazement, I saw Madame Deloche 
enter my bedroom, where all the drawers were 
open and trunks scattered about. 

“‘Why are you going away?’ she said softly. 
‘Because you love me? I love you, too. But’ 
— here her voice trembled slightly — ‘but I am 
married.’ And she told me her story. 

“ A genuine romance of love and desertion. 
Her husband drank and beat her. They had 
separated after three years. Her family, of whom 
she seemed very proud, occupied a high position 
in Paris, but since her marriage they had refused 


The Liar . 


44 1 


to recognize her. She was the Chief Rabbi’s 
niece. Her sister, the widow of an officer of high 
rank, had married for her second husband the 
head-keeper of the forest of Saint-Germain. As 
for herself, ruined as she was by her husband, she 
had luckily acquired, as the result of a complete 
and careful early education, talents which she 
turned to good account. She gave lessons on 
the piano in wealthy families, Chaussee d’Antin, 
Faubourg Saint-Honore, and supported herself 
comfortably. 

“ It was a touching story, albeit a trifle long, full 
of the pretty repetitions, the interminable episodes, 
which retard feminine conversation ; so that it 
took her several days to tell it to me. I had hired 
a little house for us two on Avenue de l’lmp^ratrice, 
among silent streets and peaceful lawns. I could 
have passed a year there, listening to her, gazing 
at her, without thinking of work. But she sent me 
back to my studio, and I could not induce her not 
to resume her lessons. The dignity of her life, by 
which she set so much store, touched me deeply. 
I admired that proud heart, although I felt some- 
what humiliated in face of her firm resolve to be 
indebted to nought but her own labor. Thus we 
were separated all day and did not meet at the 
little house until night. 

“ How joyfully I returned home, so impatient 
when she was late, and so happy when I found her 
there before me ! She brought me bouquets and 
rare flowers from her visits in Paris. I frequently 
compelled her to accept some gift, but she would 


442 


A rtists Wives . 


say laughingly that she was richer than I ; and in 
truth her lessons must have been profitable, for 
she always dressed with costly refinement, and the 
plain black in which she clothed herself with 
coquettish regard for her complexion and her type 
of beauty, was of dull velvets, glistening satin and 
jet, clouds of silky laces, wherein the wondering 
eye discovered beneath an apparent simplicity 
whole worlds of feminine cunning in the myriad 
reflections of a single color. 

“ However, there was nothing painful in her pro- 
fession, she said. All her pupils, daughters of 
bankers or brokers, adored her and respected her ; 
and more than once she showed me a bracelet or 
a ring which had been given her in acknowledg- 
ment of her painstaking services. Except as our 
work required, we were never parted; we went 
nowhere. On Sundays, however, she went to 
Saint-Germain to see her sister, the head-keeper’s 
wife, to whom she had become reconciled some 
time before. I went with her to the station. She 
always returned the same evening, and frequently, 
during the summer, we arranged to meet at some 
station in the suburbs, on the bank of the river or 
in the woods. She would tell me about her visit, 
how well the children looked and what a happy 
family it seemed to be. That made my heart ache 
for her, deprived forever of genuine family joys, 
and I redoubled my affection, in order to make 
her forget her false position, which must have been 
a cruel trial to such a heart as hers. 

‘ What a happy time of work and confidence! 


The Liar . 


443 


I had no suspicions. All that she said seemed so 
true, so natural. I reproached her for but one 
thing. Sometimes when she spoke of the houses 
to which she went, of the families of her pupils, 
she would pour forth an abundance of fancied 
details, of imaginary intrigues, which she would 
persist in inventing in spite of all I could say. 
Calm as she was, she saw romance in everything 
about her, and her life passed in dramatic combi- 
nations. These chimeras disturbed my felicity. 
To me, who would have liked to hide from the rest 
of the world and live alone with her, it seemed 
that she devoted too much attention to indifferent 
matters. But I could readily pardon that failing 
in a young and unfortunate woman, whose life thus 
far had been a sad romance with no probability of 
a happy ending. 

“ Once only I had a suspicion, or rather a pre- 
sentiment. One Sunday night she did not come 
home. I was in despair. What was I to do? Go 
to Saint-Germain? I might compromise her repu- 
tation. However, after a ghastly night, I had just 
determined to start, when she appeared, very pale 
and very much disturbed in mind. Her sister was 
ill, she had had to remain to take care of her. I 
believed what she told me, nor were my suspicions 
aroused by that flood of words, overflowing at the 
slightest question, forever drowning the principal 
idea beneath a mass of useless details : the hour of 
her arrival, a rude railway employe, a delayed train. 
Two or three times that week she went to Saint- 
Germain for the night ; then, her sister having 


444 Artis Is' Wives. 

recovered, she resumed her regular and peaceful 
life. 

“ Unfortunately, not long after, it came her own 
turn to fall sick. One day she returned from her 
lessons trembling, feverish, drenched with perspi- 
ration. Inflammation of the lungs set in, serious at 
the outset, and very soon — so the doctor told me 
— beyond hope. I was almost mad with grief. 
Then I thought of nothing but making her last 
hours happier. I would bring her family, that 
family she loved so dearly and was so proud of, to 
her death-bed. Without saying anything to her, I 
wrote first of all to her sister at Saint-Germain, 
and I went in person to see her uncle, the Chief 
Rabbi. I don’t know at what unearthly hour I 
appeared there. Great catastrophes derange life 
to its lowest depths and in its most trivial details. 
I believe that the excellent Rabbi was dining. He 
came to me in dire alarm, receiving me in the 
antechamber. 

“ His venerable face turned toward me with an 
expression of intense astonishment. 

“ I said : — 

“‘Your niece is dying.’ 

“ ‘ My niece ! Why, I have no niece ; you are 
mistaken.’ 

“ ‘ Oh ! I implore you, monsieur, forget these 
foolish family quarrels. I speak of Madame 
Deloche, the captain’s wife — ’ 

‘“I do not know any Madame Deloche. You 
are mistaken in your man, my child, I assure you.’ 

“ And he gently edged me toward the door, taking 


The Liar . 


445 


me for a sharper or a lunatic. I must have cut a 
very strange figure, in truth. What I had learned 
was so unexpected, so terrible ! So she had lied 
to me. Why? Suddenly an idea came to my 
mind. I gave orders to be driven to the address 
of one of her pupils of whom she was constantly 
talking, the daughter of a well-known banker. 

“ I said to the servant, ‘ Madame Deloche? 

“ ‘ She is n’t here.’ 

“ ‘ Yes, I know. She ’s the lady who gives lessons 
on the piano to your young ladies.’ 

“ ‘ We have no young ladies in our house, mon- 
sieur, not even a piano. I don’t know what you 
mean.’ 

“ And he angrily closed the door in my face. 

“ I pursued my investigations no farther. I was 
sure of meeting with the same reply, the same dis- 
appointment everywhere. As I entered our poor 
little house, some one handed me a letter post- 
marked Saint-Germain. I opened it, knowing 
beforehand what it contained. The head-keeper 
did n’t know Madame Deloche. Moreover, he had 
neither wife nor child. 

“That was the last stroke. So every word of 
hers for five long years had been a lie ! A thou- 
sand jealous thoughts seized me on the instant; 
and, unconscious of what I was doing, I rushed 
frantically into the room where she lay dying. 
All the questions which were torturing me fell 
together upon that bed of pain : * What did you go 
to Saint-Germain for on Sundays? With whom 
did you pass your days? Where did you sleep 


A r lists' Wives . 


446 

those nights? Come, answer me!’ And I 
leaned over her, seeking in the depths of her still 
proud and lovely eyes the answers which I awaited 
in an agony of dread; but she remained silent, 
impassive. 

“ I continued, trembling with rage : ‘ You did 
not give lessons; I have been everywhere. No 
one knows you. Where did you get all that 
money, then, and the laces and jewels?’ She 
glanced at me, a glance of heartrending distress, 
and that was all. Really I ought to have spared 
her, to have let her die in peace. But I had loved 
her too dearly. Jealousy was stronger than pity. 
I continued: ‘You have deceived me for five 
years. You have lied to me every day, every 
hour. You have known my whole life and I have 
known nothing of yours. Nothing, not even your 
name. For the name you bear is not yours, is it? 
Oh ! the liar ! the liar ! To think that she is 
dying and that I do not know by what name to 
call her. Tell me, who are you? Whence do 
you come? Why did you force yourself into my 
life? Speak to me, I say! Tell me something! ’ 

“ In vain ! Instead of replying, she turned 
painfully to the wall, as if she feared that her last 
glance would betray her secret. And in that posi- 
tion she died, the miserable wretch! — died, con- 
cealing her face from me, a liar to the end.” 


Comtesse Irma . 


447 


XT. 

COMTESSE IRMA. 

“ MONSIEUR Charles d’Athis, man of letters, has 
the honor to inform you of the birth of his son 
Robert. 

“ The child is well.” 

About ten years ago all literary and artistic 
Paris received a copy of this notice, on satin paper, 
bearing the crest of the Comtes d’Athis, the last 
of whom, Charles d’Athis, had succeeded — young 
as he was — in earning genuine celebrity as a poet. 

“ The child is well.” 

And the mother? Oh! the note did not men- 
tion her. Everybody knew her too well. She 
was the daughter of an old poacher of Seine-et- 
Oise, a former model named Irma Salle, whose 
portrait had passed through all the exhibitions as 
the original had passed through all the studios. 
Her low forehead, her lip raised at the corners 
a r antique, that fortuitous reproduction of primi- 
tive lives in a peasant-woman’s face, — a keeper of 
turkeys with Grecian features, — the slightly tanned 
complexion due to a childhood passed in the open 
air, which gives to light hair a reflection as of pale 
silk, gave to that hussy a sort of uncivilized -origi- 
nality which was made complete by a pair of eyes 


448 A rtists Wives. 

of a magnificent green, buried beneath dense 
eyebrows. 

One night, on leaving the bal de l' Optra, d’Athis 
had taken her to supper, and the supper lasted 
two years. But, although Irma had entered com- 
pletely into the poet’s life, this aristocratically in- 
solent note shows plainly enough how little place 
she occupied there. In fact, in that temporary 
household the woman was little more than an 
upper servant, bringing to the management of the 
poet-nobleman’s house the asperity of her twofold 
nature of peasant and courtesan, and doing her 
utmost, regardless of cost, to make herself indis- 
pensable. Too boorish and too stupid ever to 
have any comprehension of d’Athis’s genius, of 
those lovely verses, polished and worldly, which 
made of him a sort of Parisian Tennyson, she had 
been shrewd enough none the less to submit to all 
his disdain, to all his demands, as if, at the bottom 
of that vulgar nature, there had remained a little 
of the grovelling admiration of the peasant for the 
nobleman, of the vassal for her lord. The birth of 
the child simply emphasized her nullity in the 
house. 

When the dowager Comtesse d’Athis-Mons, the 
poet’s mother, a person of the highest distinction 
in the most exalted society, learned that a grand- 
son had been born to her, a pretty little viscount, 
well and duly acknowledged by the author of his 
being, she desired to see and embrace him. Un- 
questionably it was hard for one who had formerly 
been reader to Queen Marie-Amelie to think that 


Comtesse Irma . 


449 

the heir of so great a name had such a mother; 
but, taking courage from the form of the little 
notes announcing the child’s birth, the old lady 
forgot that creature’s existence. She chose for 
her visits to her grandson at his nurse’s, days 
when she was sure of meeting nobody; she 
gloated over him, petted him, took him into her 
heart, made him her idol, with that last love of 
grandmothers which furnishes them with an ex- 
cuse for living a few years longer in order to watch 
the growth of the little ones. 

Then, when the baby viscount was a little bigger 
and had left his nurse to live with his father and 
mother, as the countess could not abandon her 
cherished visits, an agreement was entered into : 
when the grandmother rang the bell, Irma sub- 
missively and silently disappeared ; or else the 
child was taken to its grandmother’s ; and, being 
equally spoiled by both mothers, it loved one as 
much as the other, and was astonished to notice in 
the violence of their caresses a determination to 
monopolize him, to exclude the other from his 
affection. The heedless d’Athis, preoccupied with 
his verses, with his growing renown, contented him- 
self with worshipping his little Robert, talking to 
everybody about him, and imagining that the child 
belonged to him, to him alone. This illusion was 
of brief duration. 

“ I would like to see you married,” his mother 
said to him one day. 

“ Yes — but the child ? ” 

“ Have no fear. I have discovered a young 


450 


A r lists' Wives . 


girl, of noble birth but poor, who adores you. I 
have shown Robert to her and they are old friends 
already. At all events, I will keep the little fellow 
with me the first year. After that, we will see.” 

“ But this — this girl?” faltered the poet, blush- 
ing a little, for it was the first time he had men- 
tioned Irma before his mother. 

“ Bah ! ” replied the old dowager with a laugh, 
“ we will give her a nice little dowry, and I am 
very sure that she too will find some one to marry 
her. The Parisian bourgeois is not superstitious.” 

That same evening d’Athis, who had never been 
madly in love with his mistress, spoke to her of 
these arrangements, and found her, as always, sub- 
missive and ready for anything. But the next 
day, when he went home, the mother and child 
had disappeared. They found them at last with 
Irma’s father, in a horrible little hut on the edge 
of Rambouillet forest ; and when the poet arrived, 
his son, his little prince, dressed in velvet and lace, 
was jumping on the old poacher’s knees, playing 
with his pipe, running after the hens, delighted to 
shake his golden curls in the fresh air. D’Athis, 
although deeply moved, attempted to take the 
thing as a joke and to drive his two fugitives home 
with him at once. But Irma did not view the 
matter in that light. He turned her out of the 
house ; she took her child. What could be more 
natural? Nothing less than the poet’s promise to 
abandon the idea of marrying would induce her to 
return. Even then she imposed her own condi- 
tions. He had forgotten too long that she was 


Comtesse Irma . 


45i 


Robert’s mother. To keep always out of sight, to 
disappear when Madame d’Athis arrived — that 
sort of life was no longer possible. The child was 
growing too old for her to be exposed to such 
humiliation before him. It was agreed that, since 
Madame d’Athis did not choose to meet her son’s 
mistress, she should come no more to his house, 
and that the boy should be taken to see her every 
day. 

Thereupon began a life of genuine torture for 
the old grandmother. Every day pretexts were 
invented to keep the child at home. He had been 
coughing, it was too cold, it rained. Then there 
were the driving and riding and gymnastics. The 
poor old lady never saw her grandson at all. At 
first she attempted to complain to d’Athis; but 
none but women know the secret of this petty 
warfare. Their wiles are invisible, like the con- 
cealed pins which keep their flounces and laces in 
place. The poet was incapable of penetrating 
them ; and the broken-hearted grandmother passed 
her life waiting for her darling’s visit, watching for 
him in the street when he went out with a servant, 
and by those stealthy kisses, those hurried glances, 
she added to her maternal passion without ever 
succeeding in satisfying it. 

Meanwhile Irma Salle — with the assistance of 
the child — was making her way into the father’s 
heart. Now she was at the head of the house, 
received, gave entertainments, established herself 
in her position like a woman who intends to re- 
main. She took pains to say to the little viscount 


452 


A r lists' Wives . 


from time to time, in his father’s presence : “ Do 
you remember grandpa Salle’s hens? Would you 
like to go and see them again? ” And by that con- 
stant threat of departure, she paved the way for 
the definitive step of marriage. 

It took her five years to become a countess; 
but at last she succeeded. One day the poet went 
in fear and trembling to inform his mother that 
he had decided to marry his mistress, and the old 
lady, instead of losing her temper, welcomed the 
calamity as a deliverance, seeing but one thing in 
the proposed step, namely the possibility of re- 
turning to her son’s house and loving her little 
Robert to her heart’s content. In fact the grand- 
mother enjoyed the real honeymoon. D’Athis, 
after his impulsive act, preferred to absent himself 
from Paris for a while, lie felt embarrassed there. 
And as the child, clinging to his mother’s skirts, 
ruled the whole house, they took up their quarters 
in Irma’s country, near Pere Salle’s hens. It was 
surely the most curious, most ill-assorted house- 
hold that can be imagined. Grandmamma d’Athis 
and grandpapa Salle met every night by their 
grandson’s bedside. The old poacher, with his 
short black pipe stuck in the corner of his mouth, 
and the former reader at the Chateau, with her 
powdered hair and her grand manners, stood side 
by side watching the lovely child rolling on the 
carpet at their feet, and were equally devoted to 
him. One brought him all the newest, the most 
gorgeous, most expensive toys from Paris; the 
other made him magnificent whistles from bits of 


Comtesse Irma. 


453 

elderwood ; and, on my word, the dauphin hesitated 
between them. 

Among all these beings grouped as if by force 
around a cradle, the only really miserable one was 
Charles d’Athis. His delicate Parisian inspiration 
was impaired by this life in the heart of the woods, 
like those frail Parisian ladies who cannot endure 
the fresh and invigorating air of the country. He 
did not work, and at so great a distance from that 
pitiless Paris, which closes its gates so quickly on 
the absent, he felt that he was already forgotten. 
Luckily the child was there, and when the child 
smiled the father ceased to think of his triumphs 
as a poet and of Irma Sally’s past. 

And now, do you wish to know the denotement 
of this strange drama? Read the little black- 
edged note which I received a few days ago, and 
which forms, so to speak, the last page of this 
Parisian episode : — 

“ M. le Comte and Mme. la Comtesse dAthis 
grieve to announce the death of their son Robert.” 

The poor creatures ! Can you not see them, all 
four, glaring at one another about that empty 
cradle ? 


454 


A rtists Wives . 


XII. 

THE CONFIDENCES OF A COAT EMBROIDERED 
WITH GREEN PALM-LEAVES. 

THAT morning was the morning of a glorious 
day for Guillardin the sculptor. 

Chosen the day before a member of the Insti- 
tute, he was about to christen, in presence of the 
five academies assembled in solemn conclave, his 
academician’s coat, a superb coat with green palm- 
leaves, glistening with the sheen of new broadcloth 
and the silky embroidery of the color of hope. 
The blessed coat was spread out on a chair, all 
ready to be worn, and Guillardin gazed fondly at 
it as he finished tying his black cravat. 

“ Above all things, I must not hurry, I have 
plenty of time,” thought the good man. 

The fact was that in his feverish impatience he 
had dressed himself two hours too soon ; and the 
fair Madame Guillardin — who was always a trifle 
long at her toilet — had informed him that on 
that day of all others she would not be ready until 
the precise hour; not one minute earlier, you 
understand ! 

Unhappy Guillardin ! what could he do to kill 
the intervening time? 

“ Let ’s try on the coat,” he said to himself, and 
he raised the precious garment gently, as if he 


455 


Confidences of a Coat . 

were handling tulle, and, having put it on with 
infinite precautions, he went and stood in front of 
his mirror. Ah! the graceful image that the 
mirror displayed to him ! Such a charming little 
academician, newly hatched, plump, happy, smil- 
ing, grizzly, corpulent, with arms all too short, 
which had a stiff and automatic sort of dignity in 
the new sleeves. Evidently satisfied with his ap- 
pearance, Guillardin walked up and down the 
room, bowed as if he were entering the meeting, 
smiled at his colleagues of the Beaux-Arts, assumed 
academic attitudes. But, however proud one may 
be of one’s person, one cannot stand for two hours 
in full dress before a mirror. Our academician 
became weary at last, and, being afraid that he 
should rumple his coat, he concluded to take it off 
and carefully replace it on a chair. He himself 
sat down facing it, at the other side of the fire- 
place; then, stretching out his legs and folding 
his hands over his state waistcoat, he began to 
muse ecstatically, gazing at his green coat. 

As the traveller who has finally reached the end 
of his journey loves to recall its dangers and diffi- 
culties, so Guillardin reviewed his life year by 
year, from the day when he began to try his hand 
at sculpture in the Jouffroy studio. Ah ! the first 
years are hard in that infernal profession. He 
remembered the winters without fire, the sleepless 
nights, the running about in search of work, and 
the dull rage you feel at the thought that you are 
an infinitesimal atom, lost, unknown, in the vast 
crowd that pushes you, jostles you, throws you 


A r lists ’ Wives. 


456 

down, and crushes you. And to think that he had 
been able, unaided, without patronage or fortune, 
to extricate himself from that slough ! Solely by 
talent, monsieur! And, with his head thrown 
back, his eyes half-closed, plunged in blissful con- 
templation, the excellent man repeated aloud to 
himself: — 

“ Simply by my talent. Simply by my talent ! ” 

A burst of laughter, dry and cracked like the 
laugh of a very old man, suddenly .interrupted him. 
Guillardin, a little startled, glanced all around the 
room. He was alone, quite alone, tete-a-tete with 
his green coat, that academician’s shadow solemnly 
spread out before him on the other side of the 
fire. And yet the insolent laughter continued. 
Thereupon the sculptor, looking a little more 
closely, fancied that he could see that his coat was 
no longer where he had put it, but was actually 
seated in the chair, with its skirts raised, its two 
sleeves resting on the arms, and its chest inflated 
with an appearance of life. And — a most extra- 
ordinary thing ! — it was the coat that was laugh- 
ing. Yes, it was that strange green coat from 
which proceeded those frantic bursts of laughter, 
which shook it, twisted it, made it tremble, made 
its skirts dance up and down, and at times brought 
its two sleeves toward its sides as if to check that 
supernaturally excessive and inextinguishable hi- 
larity. At the same time he heard a sharp, spite- 
ful little voice exclaim between two gasps : “ Mon 
Dieu ! Mon Dien! how it hurts me to laugh ! how 
it hurts me to laugh like this ! ” 


457 


Confidences of a Coat . 

“Who in the devil is that, anyway?” asked the 
bewildered academician, opening his eyes wide. 

The voice replied, sharper and more spiteful 
than before: “Why, it’s I, Monsieur Guillardin, 
it’s I, your green coat with the palms, waiting for 
you to go to the meeting. I ask your pardon for 
interrupting your musings so unseasonably; but 
really it was so amusing to hear you talk about 
your talent ! I could n’t restrain myself. Tell me, 
did you mean that? Do you, in all conscience, 
believe that your talent is sufficient to carry you 
so far and so high with such speed, to give you all 
you have: honors, position, fame, fortune? Do 
you believe that is possible, Guillardin? Search 
your own heart, my friend, before you answer. 
Search again, again ! Now answer me. You see 
that you dare not.” 

“ But,” stammered Guillardin with comical hesi- 
tation, “ I have — I have worked hard.” 

“ Yes, very hard, tremendously hard. You are 
a plodder, a mechanic, a great doer of tasks. You 
reckon your days by the hour like a cabman. But 
the spark of genius, my dear fellow, the golden 
bee that flies through the brain of the genuine 
artist, shedding there the radiance and humming 
of its wings — when did it pay you a visit? Never 
once, as you well know. The divine little bee 
has always frightened you. And yet, it alone 
gives real talent. Ah ! I know other men who 
work, but very differently from you, with all the 
feverish restlessness of investigators, and who 
will never reach the point you have reached. 


A r lists' Wives . 


458 

Come ! let us agree upon this, while we are alone ; 
your talent consists in having married a pretty 
woman.” 

“ Monsieur ! ” exclaimed Guillardin, red as a 
beet. 

The voice continued unmoved: — 

“ Well, well ! That indignation pleases me. It 
proves, what everybody knows by the way, that 
you are more fool than knave. There, there ! you 
need not roll your eyes at me so savagely. In the 
first place, if you touch me, if there is a simple 
false fold or crease in me, it ’s impossible for you 
to attend the meeting; and Madame Guillardin 
would not like that. For, after all, it is she who 
reaps all the glory of this great day. It is she 
whom the five academies are to receive in a little 
while ; and I promise you that, if I should appear 
at the Institute upon her graceful figure, — still 
erect and slender despite her age — I should cause 
a much greater sensation than on you. What the 
devil ! Monsieur Guillardin, you must look things 
in the face! You owe that woman everything; 
everything, — your fine house, your forty thousand 
francs a year, your crosses, your laurel wreaths, 
your medals.” 

And with a wooden gesture the green coat called 
the poor fellow’s attention with its embroidered 
sleeve to the glorious trophies hanging on the 
wall of his alcove. Then, as if it were his purpose 
to assume all possible aspects and attitudes, the 
better to torment his victim, the cruel coat moved 
its chair toward the fireplace and, leaning forward 


459 


Confidences of a Coat 

with a confidential air, continued familiarly, in a 
tone denoting an intimacy of long standing: — 

“ Well, old man, what I say seems to give you 
pain. But it is best that you should know what 
all the world knows. And who should tell you, if 
not your coat? Come ! let us reason a bit. What 
did you have when you married? Nothing. 
What did your wife bring you? Zero. Then 
how do you account for your present fortune? 
You will tell me again that you have worked hard. 
But I tell you that, by working day and night, 
with special privileges, with orders from the gov- 
ernment, which you certainly have not lacked 
since your marriage, you have never earned more 
than fifteen thousand francs a year. Do you think 
that that was enough to run an establishment like 
yours? Remember that the fair Madame Guil- 
lardin has always been classed among the women 
of fashion, that she has been prominent in all the 
social sets where money is spent freely. Parbleu ! 
I am well aware that, walled up in your studio as 
you are from morning till night, you have never 
thought about these things. You have been con- 
tent to say to your friends : ‘ I have a wife who is 
a perfect marvel for understanding business. With 
what I earn, she makes out to save money, even 
with such an establishment as ours ! ’ 

“ You are the marvel, poor man. The truth is 
that you married one of those pretty monsters of 
whom there are many in Paris, an ambitious, dis- 
solute woman, serious for your benefit and frivo- 
lous on her own account, capable of managing 


460 


A rtists Wives . 


your affairs and her own pleasure at the same 
time. The lives of such women, my dear fellow, 
resemble orders of dances at a ball, on which you 
put figures beside the names of your partners. 
Your wife argued thus: ‘My husband has no 
talent, no fortune, and is not very good-looking 
either ; but he ’s an excellent fellow, obliging, 
gullible, and as little in the way as possible. If 
he will allow me to amuse myself in peace, I will 
undertake to supply him with all he needs/ And 
from that day, money, orders, decorations of all 
countries began to rain down into your studio with 
their pleasant metallic jingle, their ribbons of all 
colors. — Look at my buttons. — Then one morn- 
ing madame was assailed by a longing — the long- 
ing of a mature woman — to be the wife of an 
academician, and it was her daintily gloved hand 
that opened to you one by one the doors of the 
sanctuary. Dame ! old man, your colleagues 
alone could tell you what it has cost you to wear 
the green palm-leaves.” 

“You lie, you lie! ” cried Guillardin, choking 
with indignation. 

“ Oh ! no, old man, I don’t lie. You have only 
to look about when you enter the meeting. You 
will see mischief lurking in every eye, a smile play- 
ing about every mouth, while people will whisper 
as you pass, ‘ There ’s the lovely Madame Guil- 
lardin’s husband ! ’ For you will never be any- 
thing else while you live, my dear fellow, than a 
pretty woman’s husband.” 

Guillardin could restrain himself no longer. 


461 


Confidences of a Coat . 

White with rage, he rushed forward to seize that 
insolent, doting garment and hurl it into the fire, 
after removing its lovely green garland; but at 
that moment a door opened, and a well-known 
voice, with a slight inflection of disdain and con- 
descension, woke him most opportunely from his 
horrible dream : — 

“ Ah ! that is just like you, upon my word ! — to 
fall asleep by the fire on such a day ! ” 

Madame Guillardin stood before him, tall and 
still fair, albeit a little too imposing with her al- 
most natural pink complexion under her powdered 
hair, and the exaggerated brilliancy of her painted 
eyes. With the gesture of a master-spirit she 
raised the coat with the green palm-leaves, and 
briskly, with a faint smile, assisted her husband to 
put it on, while the poor man, still drenched with 
the perspiration caused by his nightmare, drew a 
long breath with an air of relief, and said to him- 
self, “ What bliss ! — it was a dream !” 






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